


Burning Rubber

by VIII (Valkyrien)



Series: Burning Exhaust [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: And If You're Really Looking For The Right Tone AC/DC Is Always The Right Choice, Engage Irate Relatives In Arguments On The Upside Of Fondling Their Mates At Your Own Risk, F/M, However If You Must Bonk Your Sister's Mates Best Break The News Sooner Rather Than Later, Makes Dealing With The Consequences So Much Easier, Particularly If Your Chosen Partner Is Your Sister's Mate, Practice Responsible Fondling, Steer Clear Of Fondling Your Partner In Front Of Any Family Members However, The Author Can Accept No Responsibility For This Advice Failing To Work In Practice, When In Doubt Rely On The Words Of The Poets Who Came Before You, in theory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:46:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9669401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/VIII
Summary: Everyone's always got an opinion, no matter what you do, but it feels like they're typically more vocal about sharing those opinons when the topic at hand has to do with the romantic dealings of family members, or their driving.The moral of the story is, find you someone who is neither a backseat driver, nor likely to interfere with your choice in driving tunes (preferably someone who agrees with it) - and then ignore everyone who has a problem with the road you take together.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

   She stayed over.

 

 

   They woke up together, took Shaggydog for a walk together before the early morning mist started burning off - bits of it seeming to cling to the hem of her floaty white dress and making her hair shiny and heavier with the damp in a way _so_ like last night when they were freshly showered and dried and she took it down from its towel-turban and brushed it through and let it fall around both their faces where she lay propped up over his chest and they spent the night talking and kissing until they just fell asleep like that - and they came back and had the first cuppa of the day together, and Rickon has literally never been this happy to have nothing to do except just exist before.

 

 

   Just this, trailing around the place going about his ordinary routine, makes so much more sense with Shireen tucked under his arm, her hand in his.

 

 

   Even something as mundane as Clegane texting him and asking him to potter out to his blood box and fetch his receipt pad to check something is somehow more fulfilling when the text comes in while he's got his hands buried in Shireen's hair and her mouth opening under his because somehow putting dishes away together seemed more natural like that and with her lifted onto the counter in front of him.

 

 

   Just like it seemed natural when they got to the garage together for him to spend all of twenty seconds running Clegane's little fact-checking errand and the rest of the morning explaining the other bike parked in there which is entirely matte black without a hi-vis shield in sight and which she climbed onto like something out of a bloody Whitesnake video - except somehow far classier and yet also far more satisfyingly naughty given that he knows she really isn't wearing _any_ underwear today since his don't actually really fit or go with her dress and borrowing a pair from Sansa's room felt inappropriate without asking, which isn't something he wants to do.

 

 

   Well.

 

 

   _Explaining_.

 

 

   She knows why he has it. She knows all about his little self-realisation road-trip escape - he told her all about it last night between lingering kisses and heartfelt handfuls of her perfect arse - so she already knows this is his first bike, the work-a-day custom-job milk-run number he does everything but the volunteer stuff on.

 

 

   He's only really _explaining_ it in the sense that since she got on just for fun while he was doing Clegane's supremely boring bidding rummaging in the blood box on the other bike, once that was all over and done with he's been plastered against her back answering all her questions about this and anything else she can come up with and honestly enjoying just sitting around pretty well idly with another person about one hundred percent more than he ever thought possible.

 

 

   In fact, how absolutely bloody delightful she is has him practically giddy, so much so that he's a bit miffed at how little restraint he has in the face of it.

 

 

   For instance, it occurs to him as she takes her hands off the handlebars where she'd been leaning just for fun - after he's explained to her why he had them adjusted after he took a spill in Romania and fractured his wrist and later found the new positioning was generally just more comfortable for long-haul riding - that it is absurdly adorable just how comparatively tiny she is, because she has to lean back fully on him so as not to go sliding, her sandaled little feet dangling in the air, and just that on its own is enough to make him grin like a twat.

 

 

   “You're fucking precious,” he ends up mumbling into her hair to try and cover it up because there's no reason he has to look a wally in front of her every second of the day, and she twists round a bit and looks at him like he's gone mad, which to be fair isn't far wrong, but it also gives him a brilliant excuse to hold her that bit closer around the middle to steady her, and when she frowns and the question starts to form on her lovely lips, he just laughs and looks down at her foot kicking at nothing.

 

 

   “You don't reach the ground,” is all the explanation he has for it, and honestly she's just lovelier when she rolls her eyes and winds her arms over his and leans back into his chest and huffs,

 

 

   “Well of course I don't - you're meant to be able to when you're parked up, it's your bike. If _I_ could reach the ground like this, _you_ wouldn't even be able to ride the bloody thing.”

 

 

   “Well, yeah, but - ” he manages, the whole thing suddenly hilarious to the point where he seriously does think he's somehow gone a bit daft overnight, like he mortgaged his intellect entirely in exchange for this ridiculous bloody sense of rightness and happiness that he has no idea what to do with or how to wear with even a little grace,

 

 

   “I don't know. It's funny. You're brilliant,” he resorts to, because it's the truth of it and it's sent him round the bend, and because it has, he can bury his face in her hair and mumble,

 

 

   “Little lover...”

 

 

   “Rickon,” she groans, tipping her head back on to his shoulder and dislodging him from his new favourite hiding place, which is a shame, but it does mean he gets to look right down her dress, which is a gift, so all in all, he's not badly off and it makes him grin wider than the situation probably warrants and hold her that bit more tightly, and she frowns up at him but as far as he can make out her pout is a put-on, and she sounds exasperated but mostly amused when she asks,

 

 

   “Are you going all soppy and protective on me now?”

 

 

   “Probably,” he admits, pressing a kiss to her temple and then winking down at her and moving his right hand from her middle to her knee, dragging at the skirt of her dress only to shift it back up a good few inches when he trails his fingers just under it and up her leg,

 

 

   “But honestly... don't you know that one?”

 

 

   “Which one?” she asks on the back of a hum, and he takes the invite and pulls her right back into him so there's no way around it with his arm around her waist and his free hand inching up her inner thigh under bunched-up white, and it's so easy to hide his face in the sweet spot between her jaw and her shoulder and hum the bass line into her neck in time with the creep of his fingers, and she rocks slightly in his grasp when she laughs at him, her hands tapping the beat on his arm, and it's easy to breathe her in, too, and just hold her and look down at himself holding her and make a complete idiot of himself just for her.

 

 

   “You're not in a band, though,” she reminds him, and he shrugs a bit and kisses her cheek and her hair and tells her,

 

 

   “Not that part...” and she laughs again, and shifts against him subtly, and coos,

 

 

   “Which part then?” and if they weren't literally in an open garage with a good view of the street, and she hadn't recently been hospitalised making the more ambitious gymnastics a thought for much later, he'd be tempted to just have her as is.

 

 

   He's tempted as all fucking get-out, but not enough to play silly-buggers with her well-being. He's not that addled yet. He's not sure that's a level he can get to.

 

 

   In fact, he thinks, looking down at how he's holding her and realising that he actually thought through that before he did it because he asked her only last night whether it might hurt her if any pressure's applied to her fresh scars and she showed him just how much is just enough before that's a worry, it's looking like this addling business is actually good for how difficult he's always found the balance between being utterly scattered and hyper-focused.

 

 

   There's something weirdly, sweetly freeing about not having to think because his only impulses are already positive and purely considered, and that seems to be the order of the day where she's concerned.

 

 

   “You don't remember?” he teases, smiling more than he thinks he's done in all the time since he came home, and there's no help for it except kissing her neck and humming it for her, and letting the work of greater poets than he'll ever be speak for him,

 

 

   “ _Little lover, I can't get you off my mind..._ ”

 

 

   She giggles so hard it makes her wiggle like a disturbed jelly being taken out of the fridge, and he has to bite back a groan for it, but she gets on top of it soon enough, and the little bubbles of laughter that escape her are surprisingly easy to play once he remembers where his free hand was going, and then she only interrupts to gasp when he goes on,

 

 

   “ _Little lover, oh I tried so hard to find... someone like you..._ ”

 

 

   She raises one arm so she can pull on his curls, and her voice is all smiles when she comments,

 

 

   “That part I don't remember. I'll have to look it up.”

 

 

   “It's all in there,” he promises, and braces her properly against him just before he lets his fingers graze his intended destination and she pulls his head right down in shock and cries,

 

 

   “ ** _Rickon!_** ” _almost very nearly_ the way she did yesterday, and he smiles and smiles and doesn't regret a thing even with the awkward way she's got him craned over her shoulder and the way she won't let go of his hair, which actually isn't that comfortable, and it's his turn to laugh.

 

 

   “Told you,” he whispers, and she hitches a little breath and hisses,

 

 

   “ _Oh_ , I believe you,” but it's promises and permission, and when he makes a tactical retreat she slides her hand out of his hair in a caress that curls his toes just as well as he just curled hers - he knows because he checked and it was bloody glorious - and so he knows he's allowed to tease, and he does.

 

 

   “Sure you don't need a bit of a refresher course on the finer points?” he asks with a grin, and she makes a low sound in her throat that he can feel going down her spine.

 

 

   “Let's keep it family friendly, shall we?” she suggests with a smile almost as soft as her skin and her voice, and just for that and because he wants to he holds her a little tighter and lets his tongue flick over her shoulder when he kisses it and asks,

 

 

   “What for?”

 

 

   “Because,” she says quietly, turning her head towards him and gently smoothing her hands down over his to detach him,

 

 

   “Your sister's here.”

 

 

   She's not wrong, and seeing Sansa's car pulling into the drive almost sends him arse over tea-kettle with a nasty wrench of his neck, up and off before she's even out the door, but Shireen somehow manages an elegant dismount and doesn't even look the least bit guilty, about that or anything else, despite the fact that Sansa looks exactly like you'd expect her to, what with having caught Rickon red-handed and ready to go with a good mate of hers.

 

 

   “I really should be off,” Shireen says, calm and cool and brushing a hand casually over his arm when she passes him like he's not surreptitiously scrubbing his other hand across the back of his t-shirt and trying to avoid his sister's piercing stare, and he knows everyone involved can hear the whine in his voice when he begs her,

 

 

   “ _Please_ don't go anywhere,” but she just smiles at him and promises,

 

 

   “I'll give you a ring, alright?”

 

 

   He doesn't even hear the warm greeting she exchanges with Sansa, whose obvious wrath is apparently reserved solely for him, judging by the way she gives Shireen a very sincere hug and wishes her a safe journey home all while glaring daggers at Rickon who would very much like to be absolutely anywhere else right now - but very preferably about a thousand miles hence and safely stashed away in Shireen's knickers, thanks awfully, which isn't helpful thinking at all because he knows for a fact her knickers from yesterday are somewhere in his room at this very moment - and the minute Shireen's off in her own car, knickerless in the wasted opportunity of the century and with a little wave at them both and a sympathetic look his way, Sansa descends on him like the freshly-manicured hand of God.

 

 

   “You - _you_ \- ” she struggles, clenching her fists and seething almost comically before committing to,

 

 

   “You _wanker!_ ” as she stalks up and slaps him on the arm sharply.

 

 

   “Now that's just not true,” he defends himself, rubbing his arm even though he doesn't need to, just feels awkward standing there and having her berate him like he's done something terrible when arguably he's recently been making perhaps the most stellar set of decisions he's ever made before in his entire life, but she just glares harder and stamps her foot and says like she's on the verge of angry tears,

 

 

   “That's not _funny_ Rickon! I can't _believe_ you'd do this to Shireen - this is the _last_ thing she needs right now, what were you _thinking?_ ”

 

 

   “I was _thinking_ this was a pretty bloody fantastic day up until you stuck your oar in, and happy sodding birthday to me,” he tells her, perhaps a touch too irreverently, because all it gets him is a much harder slap on the arm, and now she really is a bit weepy, but mostly she's going full angry big sister, tangible waves of disappointment just dripping off her the same way the waterworks start dripping off her newly-curled eyelashes, and it's the last thing in the world he wanted or expected this morning to turn into.

 

 

   From semi-public moderate petting to having his bollocks served to him in full view of the neighbours by an angry sister. How the mighty do fall. He supposes he should have seen it on the horison, what with good things supposedly coming to those who wait and shite things clearly coming to those who haven't the sense to live too far away for siblings to meddle through unexpected and unwanted visits.

 

 

   “How _dare_ you try and turn this into some sort of joke - you have _no idea_ what she's been through - what she's _still_ going through,” Sansa fumes,

 

 

   “She's in _mourning_ , Rickon, have some _bloody_ respect! Of _all_ the things you could _possibly_ do, _bonking_ one of my friends who's _barely_ a month out of _hospital_ and still trying to sort her _life_ out again after she was nearly _murdered_ is the **_lowest_** \- ”

 

 

   “Of course I know what she's going through,” he protests fiercely, finally smacking away her hand where she's been punctuating her words by poking him in the arm like she did her nails especially for the job and wants to get her money's worth,

 

 

   “And I am not _just_ bonking her - although yes, she spent the night and we did shag, I'm not going to lie to my own sister,” he qualifies as loftily as he feels is possible given that they both know he's only copping to it because Sansa literally drove up to a front row seat for Rickon doing a bit more copping of an entirely different ilk,

 

 

   “And I'll have you know that part was completely her idea and I absolutely did not do anything to deserve it or put it on the table - I mean cards - ” he amends quickly when she pulls a face so disgusted at the visual he managed to provide like the tit he is that it actually makes him feel a bit wobbly as well, but Sansa's not having it and she just stabs him in the chest with a different pointy finger and insists,

 

 

   “I don't care if she stripped naked and did you a little dance - this is not about _who_ seduced _whom_ \- or if that's even applicable here - this is about you _taking advantage_ of my friend when you know _full_ well what an awful thing she's dealing with right now, and you should know _better_ than to think she'd be in _any_ kind of position to consent to this sort of carrying-on!”

 

 

   “You're actually not that far off the mark there,” he finds himself mumbling under the onslaught of her utter disapprobation, and all it gets him is her throwing her hands up and shouting,

 

 

   “ _Oh my god,_ Rickon, if you are _actually_ blaming my traumatised, _grieving_ friend for this, I swear I'll smack you into next week,” and it's the push he needs to rediscover his spine and snap,

 

 

   “Will you shut up and _listen_ , bloody _hell_ , Sansa, there's nothing anyone needs _blaming_ for, alright?”

 

 

   “Bollocks!” she cries, and he bites back the urge to shout so the whole street can tune in to this little soap opera, and instead crosses his arms and insists,

 

 

   “ _Look,_ no one _seduced_ anyone, alright? She came over yesterday, we had a nice long chat about what's been going on with her, and one thing led to another. I did _not_ take advantage of Shireen.”

 

 

   “ _You_ wouldn't think so, though, would you,” Sansa points out harshly,

 

 

   “You wouldn't _want_ to think so, but you haven't the faintest idea how much she's suffered, Rickon, and I don't care if the two of you did talk about some of it, she is _vulnerable_ right now and you have a _responsibility_ in that situation to be the mature one and not _let_ one thing lead to another!”

 

 

   “Would you just calm down and come inside so we can _not_ do this in front of the sodding postman?” he hisses through his teeth as Nigel saunters by _much_ too slowly considering he's clearly taking the scenic route and isn't actually here to deliver anything to Rickon specifically, and the appeal to her sense of privacy seems to be what gets Sansa on board with not broadcasting any more of Rickon's personal business to everyone who cares to listen, because she looks round at the audience and then narrows her eyes and storms off into the house, and Rickon takes a moment to glare at Nigel and send him packing - being caught peeping isn't a good look on anyone - and then follows her in.

 

 

   He's not got the door closed properly before she's right up his nose with her arms crossed so tightly she clearly can't breathe properly, so she sounds a bit winded when she demands,

 

 

   “ _Well?_ What have you got to say for yourself?”

 

 

   “First off,” he snaps back, thoroughly annoyed with the theatrics now as he grabs her arm and steers her into the kitchen, depositing her by the kettle so she's at least not right in front of the window,

 

 

   “None of this is any of your bloody business and I don't appreciate you coming over all high and mighty to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong - ” and before she can spew molten rage all over him, he hurries on firmly,

 

 

   “ _Secondly,_ before you jump down my throat about Shireen, maybe you should talk to her about this, seeing as _she's_ the one you're worried about!”

 

 

   “And what good'll that do me if I'm right and she's only let you - ” Sansa gestures vaguely at him as if she's picked up something vile and isn't sure how to get rid of it,

 

 

   “ - _you know_ \- because she's upset and vulnerable and dealing with some really awful things that don't necessarily put her in the best place to be making decisions like this that she won't regret later?” she challenges, and Rickon sighs and rubs his hands over his face, suddenly feeling all the emotional and physical exertions of yesterday and how early he got up this morning and how Shireen leaving so suddenly feels all wrong, but when he looks at Sansa and the fretful, betrayed shine in her eyes, he understands what she's really saying.

 

 

   “Sansa...” he begins, and the way she sets her jaw defiantly like she's ready to be brushed off or told off is almost enough to make him drop it, but this is a conversation they've not had and it's been a long while coming, so he forges on,

 

 

   “Sansa, this isn't like what happened to you.”

 

 

   “I never said it was!” she cries, eyes wide and startled, but she checks her escape route, so he knows he's got it right, and this needs out.

 

 

“No, you don't have to say,” he tells her, gently as he can,

 

 

   “But I understand why you want to protect Shireen.”

 

 

   “She is _alone_ , Rickon,” Sansa sniffs, heaving a shuddery breath, dabbing under her eye with her fingers,

 

 

   “And I know what that's like, and it's - _someone_ needs to make sure she's safe. Someone needs to _care_.”

 

 

   “I think Shireen _was_ alone, for a long time,” he agrees easily, trying to be kind, trying to tread carefully over this,

 

 

   “But that was before you knew her. Before any of this happened, Sansa. She hasn't been alone since, has she? She's had friends, and family round her, hasn't she - you and Myrcella and the Seaworths - she's not been alone with this like you were alone when you went through your bad patch.”

 

 

   A little hiccough escapes her and she grabs at it, but it's too late, and she shakes her head at him and insists,

 

 

   “You don't _understand_ , Rickon, you weren't - ”

 

 

   “I know I wasn't here when you needed me,” he interrupts quietly,

 

 

   “I know, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sansa. But this is different, alright? I'm here now, and this isn't anything like then. What happened to you is nothing like what's happened to Shireen, and I know you're worried she's going to make the same bad choices you made after what you went through, but Shireen's not you, and she's not alone like you were, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm not using her, and I'm not going to leave her hanging.”

 

 

“Oh, really?” Sansa demands, the sting taken out of it a bit by how she sniffles over it, but the words still hurt when she reminds him,

 

 

   “You're not exactly the staying-put sort, Rickon. Do you really expect me to believe that you're up to hanging about for everything she's still got to work through? Do you really think you aren't going to be tempted to do a runner a few months down the line when it turns out you really weren't invested enough to get involved with someone like Shireen who isn't going to be able to just _magically_ get better overnight or on your schedule?”

 

 

   “That's not fair, Sansa - I didn't leave because I couldn't deal with what happened to you, I wasn't even here for that because I'd already gone, and I _left_ because I needed to go and be myself on my own terms for once without it being anyone else's decision,” he insists,

 

 

   “You _know_ that, and I've been here for you since the second I got back, haven't I? I haven't buggered off and left you once, and I'm not going to, so what makes you think I'd do that to Shireen?”

 

 

   “Because _she's_ not your _sister_ ,” Sansa points out fiercely, and Rickon groans and rolls his eyes, leaning on the counter and crossing his arms a bit defensively.

 

 

   “No, she's not, but that doesn't mean I'd just use her and then piss off because she's got issues! I'd be a bit bloody hypocritical if I did that, wouldn't I?” he counters, and when she starts to address that he just pushes on, trying for calm even though he's feeling judged and cornered and all those other things he hates most of all,

 

 

   “I'm not stupid, Sansa - I know she's got a long road ahead of her to being properly recovered and she might not ever even get there, and I'm not ignoring that, just like I'm not going to promise you that Shireen and I are going to work out long-term, not that we've even discussed that, but if we did try for it and it didn't work, it'll all be _her_ decision and _not_ because _I_ decide to jump ship on her if her recovery process gets a wee bit inconvenient for me somehow.”

 

 

   “And how can you be so sure of that? You barely know her!” Sansa argues,

 

 

“You can't possibly know her well enough to even _think_ about getting involved with her at a time like this, and even if you did, who's to say all this won't end up changing her so much that the person who comes out the other side is completely different?”

 

 

   “Then I'll deal with it _then_ ,” he bites off, immediately regretting it when Sansa shrinks back, and he sighs and shakes his head and tries a different approach completely, spreading his hands and appealing,

 

 

   “Listen, she's your friend, right? You care about her?”

 

 

   “Of course I do!” Sansa says immediately, offended, and it's exactly the opening he was after so he jumps right in.

 

 

   “Well, you've only been her friend since this bloody business happened, isn't that right? Even her own cousin hardly knew her before all this, but you all get along like a house on fire anyway - ”

 

 

   “ _Rickon_ , don't use that expression, you know they set the house on fire to try and cover up the murder before they left her,” Sansa interrupts in melodramatically hushed tones, looking around as if Shireen's going to jump out of a cupboard and accuse her of being tasteless , and Rickon clears his throat because _no_ , actually, he did not know _that_ but it explains the burns and it is also disturbing as all hell, so he hurries on,

 

 

   “Right - er - slip of the tongue - but seriously, Sansa, I'm right, aren't I? None of you really know what she was like before it happened, but you know her now and you like her, don't you?”

 

 

   “Well, yes, but - ”

 

 

   “And so do I,” Rickon tells her firmly, wishing he could use more emphatic terms but fully aware that if he starts talking about how Shireen makes him feel alive and worthwhile and how he believes that Shaggydog loving her so much on sight is some kind of heavenly sign that they're meant to be and now that he's had her he honestly doesn't know what he was even _doing_ with himself before, Sansa will never in a million years take him seriously, so instead he says,

 

 

   “And if she changes drastically while she's dealing with everything, then we'll _all_ have to adjust, but in the meantime, Sansa, she and I actually have a lot in common and we get along really well and I think she's _fantastic_ , and so I'm here until she gets bored or tired of me, okay? I'm not like what's-her-face, the one you rebounded with post-trial - _I'm_ not rebounding from anything for a start, and for another thing, whatever you think, I don't walk out on the people I care about. You know that. If you'd actually _told_ me at any point while I was away what you were dealing with here at home, I'd have been back here committing murder in your name within the week.”

 

 

   It gets him an awkward, guilty little laugh, so he forges on,

 

 

   “So if you're still worried that maybe she's not in a good place to be making decisions about things like this right now, talk to her, not me. I can't tell you what she's thinking. All I can tell you is I know everything Shireen thinks I need to know, and I'm not going anywhere until she tells me to get lost, which honestly I see coming sooner rather than later, because she is definitely going to realise she can do a lot better than me once she gets over some of all this crap she's dealing with.”

 

 

   Sansa's dismayed little pout seems to be more for his self-deprecation, however candid, than her fears that he's going to pull a fast one on her mate not unlike the one Sansa had pulled on herself by that other bloody ex-fiancée of Joffrey's now, which is something, but she still looks troubled, so he finally just sighs and asks,

 

 

   “Can you just go and call her already? Please? You're not going to feel better or hate me less for this until you've got it from her that I didn't take advantage of her, so please just go and make her tell you what you need to know?”

 

 

   “I will,” Sansa decides, fiddling with her hair,

 

 

   “But... I'm really not comfortable with this, Rickon. I mean... was it planned, at all? Why didn't you tell me anything?”

 

 

   “Because it _absolutely_ was not planned,” he reasons,

 

 

   “But I'm not sorry. We didn't do anything wrong, Sansa, and if you're still not fine with it after Shireen tells you just as much, then I can't really help you with that, because then it's not really got anything to do with us. You've got a lot of your own stuff you still need to work through.”

 

 

   “I know that!” she snaps, instantly defensive,

 

 

   “But I am not just - _just_ projecting my own issues on to Shireen, if that's what you think! I _am_ really _worried_ about her, and I'm worried that you might not be taking this really seriously at all, and if you're not, you could _really_ hurt her, and she doesn't deserve that at all let alone right _now_ , after everything!”

 

 

   “I know,” he says simply,

 

 

   “But you _are_ projecting a little bit even though her situation's totally different from yours, so until you've talked to her and you're satisfied _she_ isn't mental just because she decided to be with me and that _I'm_ not taking advantage of her just because that happened, I can't convince you to let any of that go, so just go and talk to her, and then if you still have a problem with it afterwards, we'll deal with it then.”

 

 

   She glares at him in silence for a moment, and then sort of sags, taking a deep breath and grumbling,

 

 

   “Fine,” before turning around and marching out and up the stairs.

 

 

   He can hear her door slam up there, so he does the only thing he can do and goes to get Shaggy from the garden and then collapses in the living room covered in a giant, comfortingly heavy dog who slobbers onto Rickon's shirt as he prays and hopes that Shireen can somehow talk Sansa out of her issues, because yes, to some extent, this looks bad, he can see that.

 

 

   Sansa's not wrong, it does look a bit off that he apparently just _fell_ into bed with his sister's newly-traumatised still-healing friend whom he barely knows - but it's also pretty obvious that the lion's share of Sansa's problem with this whole scenario is that it's bringing back memories of her own ill-fated trauma-rebound with Joffrey's other ex, and so she's worried that Shireen is going to end up going through the same crap she went through; being ditched by someone she got way too close to _way_ too soon after a majorly upsetting life event and having that compound the miseries she's already facing. Courtesy of Sansa's own brother, no less, which is like a layer of chocolate buttons atop the dog-shite trifle of terrible, horrible circumstance.

 

 

   The thing is, however much Rickon understands that, part of him resents that there's even any room left in Sansa's estimation of his own character for her to feel any of that in connection with him.

 

 

   Not because he's her brother - he knows he doesn't deserve a free pass on any of his bollocks for that alone - but because he honestly thought she knew him better than that. Thought better of him.

 

 

   It's not that he doesn't understand that among the frankly ridiculous personal lives of his siblings, his own is honestly a bit dull and definitely not competition-worthy when measured against things like Robb's truly horrendous track record with women, or Jon's paternity issues, or Arya's broad-spectrum defiance of absolutely everything their parents have ever wanted, or how going the other way on that led to Sansa's own utter fiascos with other people, _or Bran's entire everything_ , and really, it's not that Rickon is actually in the market for any personal drama of his own to make him the focus of the family's interest, and he never has been, but...

 

 

   This is where being mostly noticed for being the baby of the family - something he'll never be able to escape - is a bit of a curse, because it's _mostly_ a one-way ticket to being overlooked and disregarded. No one bothers to explain what's actually going on when you're the youngest of this many, they just carry on discussing whatever new sensational event's happened over your head like you're not there, or put a lot of effort into virtuously shushing each other in case the baby hears something inappropriate for little ears.

 

 

   Which is a bit shite when you're _twelve_ and you've not been a _baby_ for about that long, and you understand every word and still can't get anyone to give you an honest answer when you ask what the fuck is actually going on and why everyone's so upset about whatever-the-fuck's-happened-this-time.

 

 

   Half the time he's not sure whether his parents packed him off to boarding school thenabouts because they didn't know what else to do with him, or because they just got sick of having to censor themselves around him all the time, but whichever it was, they've never gotten over this idea that Rickon's too young to have to bother with all the family drama and so it's best to just keep him out of it. Regardless of how utterly bloody distressing that is when you're a reasonably intelligent kid and you know bloody well enough that shit's afoot, but no one's telling you anything.

 

 

   To this day he's not sure himself whether he's glad they just sent him away or whether he resents them all more for that. He's definitely sure he resents them all for hardly ever remembering to call him and for having nothing much to say to him when they did, in case they violated the Catelyn Stark edict that Rickon not be upset by anything while at school, in case it _distracted_ him.

 

 

   Rickon always thought his mother was quite clever, but how it never sank in with her that the uncertainty of not having the whole story no matter what's happening but feeling all the tension of no one being allowed to bloody _tell_ you anything about it is a _lot_ more distracting than someone just giving you all the facts and letting you come to terms with them, he'll never understand.

 

 

   So no, Rickon's never felt the need to start any shit of his own, which is a lot easier when you don't get on with most people and would rather be on your own, because at least that way, if someone _else_ wants to start something, you can just bugger off and leave them to it, and he doesn't want to be unfair to her, but if Sansa had paid any real attention to him at all in his formative years before her life turned into an episode of Hollyoaks and he got sent away, she'd know that about him.

 

 

   He's not really changed much since he was a kid, not really, he doesn't think.

 

 

   Difficult, they always called him, in school and everywhere, but he's not really and he never was. Bit of an awkward, stubborn little bastard, obviously, angry because no one ever had the time to sit him down and explain anything even when things were going to crap around the house, and bitter with it, but not _difficult_.

 

 

   Not liking most people is pretty simple. Easy to get on with, if you'll just accept that and move on, Rickon feels, and if you'd rather be outside on your own or messing about with dogs, then at least people know where you are and that you're not getting into all sorts. Simple.

 

 

   Rickon's never been one of the lads. He's never been in with a bad crowd - too independent and dismissive of the petty intrigues of others for anything like that. He's never messed anyone about, whether they wanted him to or not, both because his siblings were enough of a cautionary tale in that regard that he honestly didn't see the point, and because Rickon's brand of brutal honesty doesn't go well hand in hand with that sort of nonsense anyway. He reckons he could have ended up in prison fairly easily between how much his parents ignored him up to a certain point, and what a shit example his siblings all set, and yet he's never seen the shadow of a conviction for anything.

 

 

   Bit hard to get nicked for doing something questionable when you're mostly out in the woods or mucking about with bike parts in a garage.

 

 

   For a Stark, he's positively boring - about the most interesting thing he ever did as a tot was get into a few scrapes with other tots because they were little gobshites; hardly remarkable stuff when his sister was getting expelled from this, that, and t'other bloody school every other year for every conceivable offence under the sun, and his brothers were shagging their way across first the county and then the country at large.

 

 

Honestly, even though he understands that Sansa's experience now is coloured by what she's been through, Rickon's fairly upset on reflection that she could think for even a minute that Rickon's the sort of chap who'd go for Shireen on purpose because she's an easy target, or that it wouldn't occur to him to sound her out as to whether she's actually alright with what they did before they got to that part. And that's without even presuming to get upset on Shireen's behalf at the implication that Shireen needs protecting, since after all, she did practically crucify him for suggesting that once she realised what he was driving at on that front.

 

 

   Thinking on it now, he's even more upset that Sansa'd stoop to calling him on not being around while everything was at its most buggered with her and the family, as if him not being here for that proves that he's not dependable in a crisis.

 

 

   If they'd bothered to tell him that there _was_ a crisis, any of them, he'd have been home _that_ quick.

 

 

   He left after college to be really on his own and sort himself out, and he gave fair warning on that, and he made sure they'd all be able to reach him if they needed to, he called in every now and then while he was away so they'd all know he wasn't lying in a landfill somewhere or in a shallow grave on another continent, and none of them ever bothered to tell him that shit was kicking off at home in a big way.

 

 

   It doesn't even matter _why_ no one told him until he got back, what'd been going on - whether it's Robb's weak excuse that he didn't want Rickon to cut his gap year short and end a 'trip of a lifetime' just to come back home and be useless anyway, since it wasn't like he'd have been able to _do_ anything about Sansa's situation or anything else (which is such a crock when Robb knows rootless Rickon at that point could have gone wherever he liked in the world under any pretext, and there never was a gap year, he was just travelling for the sake of it and obviously would have rather been back in Blighty to support Sansa if he'd known she needed support), or Arya's equally weak excuse that she didn't want to be the one to call him back home and then have to explain to the family why Rickon had been arrested for the murder of Joffrey Lannister-Baratheon within 24 hours of arrival - it's all a bunch of arse and Rickon can't be fucked to dwell on everyone's individual motives for keeping him in the dark.

 

 

   What matters is that it's not right telling him that he's not dependable, or that he's not up to handling this sort of thing, or that he's not bloody _responsible_ enough to hang about when the shit hits the fan, and using his not being here for something no one told him anything about until after the fact as a prime example of all these supposed failings of his. That's just not bloody cricket.

 

 

   Not when fact is, Rickon has never not been there for his family when they've told him they need him, even if that's been a rare enough occurrence. Even when they've not wanted him there, he's made sure they knew he was there for them, supported them.

 

 

   Rickon's not going to let Sansa off on throwing it in his face that he's not the 'sticking around type' when of all their siblings, he's the one who's been there for her most after he was actually let in on there being something wrong in the first place.

 

 

   He's not going to just take that lying down when she ought to know him better than that - when she _would_ know, if she or any the rest of them had ever bothered to take him into account long enough to get the measure of him when they were growing up, or scratch the surface on him now that he _is_ all grown up to see that actually, barring perhaps Jon, Rickon's by far the most well-adjusted and dependable of them all.

 

 

   He supposes glumly that this is what he gets out of not being in anyone's face about it, and not demanding any credit.

 

 

   They all used to give him grief when he was a kid for being a lurker - like it was his fault that he could get away with tucking himself round corners or edging into rooms while everyone else was screaming their heads off or deep in cahoots about something they'd like to keep far from the light of day, and always noticed him too late. Maybe it's about time he asserts his personality. Then at least they'd know what that _is_.

 

 

   Shaggy's whining cuts into his somewhat sulky musings on how his family's really quite self-absorbed when you get past the loyalty and the bloody nosiness of them all, and Rickon drags himself out of it to rub Shaggy's ears, but all that gets him is another low, mournful whine, and a lick of his fingers.

 

 

   “I know, mate - you didn't get to say a proper goodbye, either,” Rickon commiserates, sighing, and Shaggydog huffs and puts his massive head right over Rickon's shoulder, somehow making himself heavier than before.

 

 

   Shaggy's a lot like Rickon - doesn't like most people. Won't interfere with them, or kick up a fuss if there's people about, but isn't too enthused in general.

 

 

   Apparently, that's enough for some to feel that he should have been destroyed as a pup; great hulking thing like him hardly liking anyone, not doing as he's told, bit worrying to some, but Rickon understood. He just needs that, someone who gives enough of a shit to spend the time, to understand. A firm but gentle hand.

 

 

   No wonder he's so besotted with Shireen, Rickon thinks with a melancholy snort, sinking into the sofa even further under the furry weight of his lovelorn dog and burying himself up to the eyeballs in fluff: she is the full package. She resonates. Also, she is extremely cuddly, and it's a rare thing that Rickon finds himself both yearning to be cuddled - of all sodding things - and wanting to be cuddled up to an actual human person rather than his dog.

 

 

   Maybe that's the sign, he thinks grumpily, tugging at handfuls of Shaggy's fur to get at his undercoat and scratch him properly, finding someone he'd rather cuddle than his dog. It's clearly a portent of having found the _right_ someone that said dog has also exhibited signs of wanting to cuddle said someone more than wanting to cuddle Rickon.

 

 

   Or maybe he's just a sad case. Arya's been saying it for years, could be she's not all wrong.

 

 

   He probably looks a pitiful sight like this, when Sansa comes back down and gives him One Of Those Looks, but he's not wallowing any more than he's first out of the gate before she can start in, and tells her without any blather,

 

 

   “You hurt my feelings.”

 

 

   “Er - ” she blinks, blindsided, which really she oughtn't be after all this time, Rickon's habit of being completely upfront about everything should not be a surprise to her, but she does get past it quickly, if a bit hesitantly, offering up a questioning,

 

 

   “I'm... sorry?”

 

 

   “It's not fair,” Rickon points out, wrestling himself free of Shaggydog's bulk a bit at a time so he can gesture with one arm,

 

 

   “ - of you to go on at me about not being here for you, and not being someone who doesn't clear off at the first sign of bother, when you're basing that off when I was on my trip. Not when you know perfectly well I didn't know the first thing about there even _being_ any bother. You all had _every_ opportunity to let me know, and _none_ of you bloody did. It is not fair of you to throw my absence in my face, when no one - you included - told me there was anything going on here at home that I was absent _from_.”

 

 

   Sansa's looking at him like he's grown a second head, and for a second when she opens her mouth, he thinks she's going to argue, or tell him that's not what she was doing just now, but she closes her mouth again, looks away, frowns, and apparently thinks better of whatever she was going to say.

 

 

   When she looks back at him, her face is just honest, and a wee bit ashamed.

 

 

   “I'm really sorry, Rickon,” she says sincerely, tacking it on to a helpless shrug, and Rickon glowers at her.

 

 

   “Don't be sorry, just don't bloody do it again, yeah?” he asks, a bit gruff with emotion, realising it's been going on all this time and he's not said anything out of guilt even though he actually had nothing to feel guilty about, and while she's not said it to his face before now, she must have been thinking it, which is just a bloody liberty,

 

 

   “Because it's not right. You've all been happy enough to ignore me and let me mind myself all these years, and none of you have ever wanted me involved when there's been an issue because I've been the youngest - none of you ever took much of an interest when I got sent to boarding or took the time to keep me updated about anything going on at home, and it's not like any of you had much time for me once I got back and went to college, what with Jon and Bran and Robb and all that, _not that any of you actually talked to me about any of that either -_ ”

 

 

   He sort of realises he's getting himself worked up, and clears his throat, digging his hands into Shaggydog's fur and getting to the point,

 

 

   “But when have I _ever_ not been there for any of you when you've _actually_ let me know something was up? Name _one_ occasion.”

 

 

   Sansa fidgets.

 

 

   “There you go,” Rickon tells her with hollow triumph,

 

 

   “So I'm alright with you needing time to get to a place where you're not worried about the people around you pulling a Joff, or stitching you up like that selfish bint who took you for a ride during the trial, because I agree with you that most people are a shower of bastards, but if I can be objective about that, I don't think _I_ am, and I don't think I deserve for you to lump me in with the likes of them. I _definitely_ don't deserve for you to tell me I'm not dependable, or not grown up or whatever enough to understand Shireen's situation and handle that appropriately. I honestly think I've done enough to prove to _you_ at least that I'm not a complete wanker who doesn't know when to step up.”

 

 

   Now she absolutely looks ashamed of herself, which is... not really what he was after, but it only lasts a moment or so, and then she sighs, and sets about trying to sit down next to him on the sofa.

 

 

   “Rickon, I am really sorry,” she tells him earnestly, shoving at Shaggy ineffectually, because when he lies down like this he actually takes up the entire sofa on his own easy,

 

 

   “I had no idea you felt like this - Shaggy, budge up, _honestly_ \- ” she grumbles between heartfelt looks Rickon's way, frowning down at the obstinate mass of Dog in her way and finally perching on the armrest, finishing,

 

 

   “You never said anything...”

 

 

   “Well, no,” Rickon mumbles, shrugging, picking at Shaggy's ears and ignoring his doleful expression as Sansa pushes at his arse with her foot,

 

 

   “Didn't see the point. And you had enough to get on with.”

 

 

   “Yes, but you could have _told_ me,” Sansa insists, finally giving up on shifting Shaggy and just using him as a pillow so she can lean closer to Rickon and, with a bit of a blush, admit,

 

 

   “And I _am_ sorry. And I know you're nothing like that, honestly. Shireen... said much the same, actually. And to be fair to her, she was good about it considering I was quite rude and I don't really have any business asking either of you what may or may not be happening between you. I was just surprised, and I handled it badly.”

 

 

   “Understatement,” Rickon mutters, plastering his whole face in Shaggy's warm, heaving side, and there is resultingly awkward silence.

 

 

   It is broken at length by his phone, merrily chiming away beneath several kilos of dog, and it goes on chiming for some time, as Rickon squirms to get his arm back under Shaggydog, and his fingers into his own pocket, which requires unbending from his almost painfully sullen slouch and hoisting all that canine mass upwards in a fairly awkward thrust of his hips as he jams his fingers into his own jeans.

 

 

   Sansa, tactfully, does not look directly at this display.

 

 

   She does comment lightly,

 

 

   “That's really pretty - did you change your ringtone?”

 

 

Which a surly Rickon who feels like he shouldn't have actually broken a sweat trying to get into his own pocket after his phone when it's effectively being held hostage by his own dog, responds to having his dignity compromised like this by circumstances beyond his control by rolling his eyes and telling her,

 

 

   “Of course it's _pretty_. It's _Iron Maiden_. Shireen suggested the change.”

 

 

   At the mention of her name, Shaggy comes out of his despondent slump and pricks his ears, perking up enough that Rickon can wriggle out of his own slump underneath him and sit up like an adult as he unlocks his phone to see what the damage is.

 

 

   “Oh,” Sansa says, like she's not sure how to proceed, and Rickon looks at her seriously.

 

 

   “We've got a lot in common, you know,” he reveals, feeling oddly vindicated that he's been given such an excellent opportunity to show her actual proof of this,

 

 

   “And she's hilarious. And I like her, a lot.”

 

 

“Well, she is really lovely,” Sansa allows, and Rickon nods, and glances at his phone.

 

 

   _'We need to talk'_ , reads the message from Shireen.

 

 

   **_Bollocks._**

 

 

   “Yeah,” Rickon replies distantly, as his sister tries for an encouraging smile,

 

 

   “I don't think you need to worry.”

 

 

   -

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   [ARTWORK INSPIRED BY THIS COURTESY OF THE LOVELY FROZENSNARES](http://frozensnares.tumblr.com/post/157225483036/frozensnares-rickon-has-literally-never-been)


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

   “And then nothing?” Bran asks, leaning in over Summer to crane his neck at Rickon's phone, which is dangling despondently from his hand and displaying exactly what's advertised.

 

 

   “ _Nothing_ ,” Rickon echoes blankly, flipping his wrist so Bran can see,

 

 

   “Not a _bloody_ thing.”

 

 

   “Oh, mate,” Bran winces, the picture of sympathy as he paws Rickon's phone to have a closer look,

 

 

   “Oh, that's rough...”

 

 

   It _is_ rough.

 

 

   Rickon's had bouts of festival flu that were kinder to him than this.

 

 

   It's seven in the evening, day of, and he's not heard a thing from Shireen since her texting him that they've got to have a chat, which isn't even what the text actually said, _oh_ no. That's just what Rickon's choosing to recall privately, after the searing disappointment of ' _We need to talk_ ' burned itself onto his retinas because he's been staring at the bloody thing all day, and he can't handle any of those words anymore, not even separately.

 

 

   “So how many messages did you send her then?” Jojen asks from the armchair, fiddling with his stupid bloody new vape-thingy, and before Rickon can summon the mental strength to roll his head across the back of the sofa and tell him the sordid truth, Bran does it for him.

 

 

   “Only the three, so not that bad - none marked read though.”

 

 

   Jojen's eyebrows look as surprised as Bran sounds when Rickon does get round to actually turning his head that way, but the rest of his face stays as distantly mellow as it always is, and he sounds half-asleep when he comments,

 

 

   “Maybe she died.”

 

 

   “What the _eff_ \- ”

 

 

   “Jo - bit much, yeah?” Bran intervenes soothingly before Rickon can kick off completely, and Jojen just looks up at them with that slow, uncoordinated blink he does that makes you seriously question whether he's all there, like he didn't even realise he'd said anything at all, and glances from Rickon's frozen disbelieving snarl and white-clenched fists to Bran's scrunched-up nose and sage shake of the head, and then widens his eyes like it just now dawned on him that he was out of order and that there might be consequences to that.

 

 

   “Oh,” he says slowly,

 

 

   “Right. Yeah, well - probably she hasn't, but maybe she's just really tired then,” he reasons, gesturing loosely at Rickon and adding,

 

 

   “After all the, you know...”

 

 

   “The shagging,” Bran supplies helpfully, like it needed saying and Rickon wasn't perfectly capable of grasping where Jojen was going, and it grates on already sensitive nerves, enough to make him snap,

 

 

   “Yes, _thank you_ , Bran - I think that's obvious,” and Bran immediately holds up his hands and looks down at Summer's hopefully-proffered tummy with dramatically arched eyebrows, muttering,

 

 

   “Alright, alright - don't have to bite my head off!” and then there's a bit of an awkward intermission as Rickon falls back into silent sulking and Bran rubs Summer's tummy studiously and Jojen looks up at the ceiling-mouldings with dim interest.

 

 

   “Well,” Jojen says finally, crossing his legs and gesturing more pointedly,

 

 

   “There are two options. Either,” he starts listing on fingers that have nothing to do with each other,

 

 

   “She died somewhere between your seeing her off and her sending you that text, of unknown causes, _or_ ,” he emphasises with a conceding glance at Bran, who just sighs,

 

 

   “Something else prevented her from seeing your texts. Rationally, it's more likely the latter. Agreed?”

 

 

   “I think that makes a lot of sense,” Bran says reasonably, looking to Rickon like he's hoping for some input that isn't just scowling - chance'd be a fine thing - and adding, like it's meant to be comforting,

 

 

   “Descending into wholesale existential nihilism seems a bit of an overreaction at this point.”

 

 

   “He's not though,” Jojen points out immediately, with the highest activity level he's shown all day to Rickon's best knowledge,

 

 

   “This is an obvious case of simple despair arising from a promising prospect seemingly being cruelly torn away before it can come to its most pleasingly aspired-to fruition. I don't detect any existential crisis setting in at this time - not yet, anyway. I suppose if it turns out she really has died, it'll become a very real possibility, but for now, I'd say this is a common or garden-variety defeated-hopes situation.”

 

 

   “Please don't diagnose my brother, you know he doesn't like it,” Bran says with fond exasperation,

 

 

   “And stop being a thoughtless twat. The odds of her having died are so slim I'd accuse you of harping on it like this just to piss Rickon about if I didn't think you were really a lovely person at heart.”

 

 

   “I bloody knew coming here was a mistake,” Rickon groans into his arm where he buried his face two sentences into Jojen's speech,

 

 

   “Fucking academics...”

 

 

   “Well excuse me for trying to help,” Jojen huffs, reminding them loftily,

 

 

   “I'm only _trying_ to make sure we're not working from the wrong baseline so we can find the right sort of solution to your brother's issue. I happen to think it's important to establish an accurate starting point from which to work. Also, _I_ made the tea.”

 

 

   “I'm not sure what you think you made, but I think calling it 'tea' is a bit of a stretch, if you're worried about accuracy,” Bran comments dryly, and Rickon drags himself into a proper sitting position to interrupt their bickering and ask the question to which he only wants to hear one answer:

 

 

   “Where's Meera?”

 

 

   Apparently he might as well have launched a new debate topic, because Bran pauses in what was probably shaping up to be a more thorough discussion on Jojen's so-called tea and how it fails the standard Cuppa-Test on several markers - not like Rickon could weigh in there, anyway, since he's not touched his and it's safer not to in this house - and instead frowns and hesitates as though he's been asked to take five minutes to help formulate a cogent response, and Jojen's expression goes completely blank as he stares at the wall above Bran's head, eventually positing,

 

 

   “She... went somewhere.”

 

 

   “She did,” Bran confirms, and then with no real conviction suggests,

 

 

   “Shops, maybe?”

 

 

   “Right,” Rickon says heavily, rubbing at his eyes, utterly knackered now,

 

 

   “So you don't know where she went. S'pose it's too much to expect you've an idea when she'll be back, then.”

 

 

   “She might have said,” Jojen shrugs carelessly, waiving all responsibility with,

 

 

   “I was reading.”

 

 

   “Why the fuck Sansa comes _here_ of all places when she needs to _relax_ is bloody beyond me,” Rickon mutters into his hands, because however much he loves his brother and tolerates Jojen, they are an absolute effing nightmare without Meera about to provide a bit of sense and take the edge off the relentless philosophical twattery.

 

 

   “Because we know how to cheer a body up,” Jojen says like that's common knowledge, while Bran pulls a face.

 

 

   “I wouldn't go that far - I think she just likes trying to teach you how to bake and having a bit of a gab, that's all,” he offers.

 

 

   “Never mind that - I don't want _cheering up_ , anyway, I _wanted_ to talk to my brother,” Rickon complains, fairly certain he's still the dignified side of whingeing,

 

 

   “And fat lot of good it's done me.”

 

 

   “Well, what do you want us to say?” Bran asks in that bloody aggravating voice he likes to put on when he gets well into older-brother-as-therapist mode, tilting his head like a cheeky bird peeping through the kitchen window at your mid-morning hangover as you try and cook a competent fry-up,

 

 

   “Until she gets back to you, you're stuffed, and we can't really change that by sitting about here speculating as to what's occurring on her end of things, and unless you fancy giving Sansa a ring for the contact details of those people Shireen's staying with, you can't really do much to find out where she is or what's up until she does get in touch again,” he lines up, and then sits back like that's job well done and finishes, off-hand like it just came to him,

 

 

   “For all you know, her phone's died.”

 

 

   “Can we just stop using that word?” Rickon pleads, exhausted, and Bran shrugs.

 

 

   “As you like,” he rumbles agreeably, scratching Summer's ears.

 

 

   “And I'm not ringing Sansa,” Rickon carries on belligerently, because even if he did part ways with her on fair terms earlier, things were still a bit wobbly between them and he doesn't much fancy having to admit to her that there's a problem by calling to beg for the Seaworths' contact info.

 

 

   “No, I wouldn't - bit desperate, isn't it?” Jojen asks with a sniff, then rolls his shoulders and meanders,

 

 

   “Besides, she's probably taking a nap, your girl - whenever Sansa's had a go at me I always need a bit of a lie-down before I feel myself again.”

 

 

   “That's because you're a soft bugger,” Bran snipes affectionately, and Rickon fights back a hint of a gag at the thought.

 

 

   “She did not _have a go_ at Shireen,” he puts them right angrily,

 

 

   “Sansa only said she probably came off a bit rude over the phone, being a right nosy little sod about things that don't actually concern her, that's all she meant - she wouldn't have been properly unkind or anything, or she'd have been a lot guiltier about it!”

 

 

   “Be that as it may,” Bran says, a bit self-importantly considering he's also making googly-eyes at his dog,

 

 

   “I still think it's more than likely Shireen's just taken a bit of time for herself, or forgotten to charge her phone back up, and I don't think there's anything we can do except wait to hear back from her, _and in the meantime -_ ” he overrides Rickon's budding protest,

 

 

   “We need to get you out of the house and distracted.”

 

 

   “Distracted?” Rickon scoffs, and Bran nods his most annoying wise-owl nod as if he's prescribing a good time as a balm for Rickon's woes, which is the least intelligent thing he's ever tried on, in Rickon's opinion, because _distraction_ is not something Rickon _does_.

 

 

   “It'll be good for you, take your mind off it,” Bran wheedles, eyes shining like he's already got an itinerary for just how to go about it plotted out in his over-active noggin.

 

 

   “Stop you calling her a million times and driving yourself up the wall,” Jojen adds, and Rickon chooses not to acknowledge the comment in case that gives any impression that he's likely to do any such thing, because he's not, thanks very much, he is not that sad, and Bran picks up the thread, cooing,

 

 

   “Exactly, it'll stop you doing anything daft. Go on, let us help - it'll be our treat!”

 

 

   **_Oh crap._**

 

 

   “What will?” Rickon asks, scenting a trap thick in the air, and in his peripheral vision he catches Jojen scrolling vigorously through his apps as Bran leans closer to treat Rickon to his overly-studied most harmlessly guileless look.

 

 

   “It won't be anything too involved - we'll just pop down the local - ” he starts up, before Jojen cuts across with a muttered,

 

 

   “Can't, they're doing it up - we'll have to go down the Other Pub,” which sounds ominous in and of itself, but Bran doesn't let up, big liquid eyes fixed on Rickon like some kind of Disney sidekick parody, insisting,

 

 

   “It'll be fine - they do a lovely craft brew - we'll make a night of it, maybe go into town after, work off some of all this residual stress and tension - you've not even had a proper come-down from that barney with Sansa this morning, you need to re-set, stop obsessing about this girl and just let time do for you, you know I'm right...”

 

 

   “What I know is that you're trying to use me as an excuse to go clubbing,” Rickon accuses roughly, and Bran sticks out his bottom lip like he's been doing all his life when he wants to seem wounded and unfairly suspected of wrongdoing - right down to the little sniffle he adds that seems to say ' _How hurtful of you to think that of me_ ', it's exactly the same number he's been pulling ever since Rickon can remember, and it might work on Catelyn but it definitely will not work on him.

 

 

   “I would never!” Bran refutes, hugging Summer's head close to his chest as if he's shocked that Rickon would even suggest it, but Rickon keeps his glare hard and finally Bran's face goes sour with thwarted manipulation and he resorts to shameless pleading,

 

 

   “Honestly, that's not what it's about - it's just been ages since we went out together, and I think it'll be good for you, give you a night off from all this stress and get you out of your head - ”  

 

 

   “I've got a Groupon - shots and that down the club for later, if you like,” Jojen chimes in, waving his phone at them, and Rickon sighs.

 

 

   “It'll be _really_ casual, I promise - we won't even change, we'll go just like this,” Bran swears up and down, and Jojen frowns at his crumpled shirt, which looks more like Summer's been wearing it than like Bran put it on fresh when Rickon dropped in for a visit, even though he did, Rickon saw him and he's not even surprised by that anymore because he's long since had to make peace with the fact that if left to his own devices Bran won't get dressed at all, and since he sleeps mostly in the buff for very spurious reasons having to do with it supposedly being healthier and not liking the confines of cloth getting in the way of enjoying his high thread-count sheets during the night, more often than not he's in his nude.

 

 

   Come to think of it, that might be a Stark trait, Rickon muses, not being too fussed about clothes. Not that it's an issue. It's all just skin. He just wishes Bran would at least try and remember to get dressed without needing a prompt.

 

 

   “Why does this come off like you lot are trying to blag a night out off me because Meera's not around to stop you?” he asks suspiciously, and Jojen looks at him calmly.

 

 

   “She won't mind. Call her and see,” he bluffs. Rickon bloody well knows he's bluffing because as easy-going as Meera is, he knows she's not going to look kindly on this little outing when she hears of it eventually. Which she will. Probably before the night is through, to be honest, since Rickon's fairly sure he won't last 'til morning on his own if he has to keep an eye on both of them in town.

 

 

   Given that Bran can't actually get very far under his own steam even on a good day when he's got his stick to lean on, it's amazing how difficult he is to herd once he's got a few pints in him.

 

 

   Rickon honestly wouldn't be shocked to learn that Meera's gone off to visit a mate or something just to get off her feet for a bit, and he does not begrudge her that. She's got the patience of an angel. How she manages the both of them on a daily basis he will never know.

 

 

   He'll do it for Meera, he decides. Give her the night off. Tire them out so she can ease back into things when she gets home whenever. And it won't be like his disastrous last night out with Arya and Gendry, he reasons. Bran and Jojen at least aren't going to start questioning his taste in women or suggesting he just move on and find someone else to be the Dairylea dip to his dunkers - they've got that much respect for his ability to make reasonably sound decisions about people.

 

 

   “Go on then,” Rickon mumbles,

 

 

   “Let's have it.”

 

 

   Three hours later and three and a half pints in, and he's not sure he's distracted in the exact way Bran had hoped for, but a nice tension headache's starting to set in behind his eyes and between getting the drinks in so Bran and Jojen can keep arguing about some sort of article one or the other of them is maybe going to be co-writing with someone else either at or for their uni, and refereeing said argument so there's no name-calling, which apparently is Meera's hard rule when they get like this, he's definitely not got much mind left over to think too hard on what the hell might be going on with Shireen.

 

 

   Which of course is the wrong thing to notice when that's what you're trying not to think about.

 

 

   “... I'm just off for a slash,” he mumbles under Jojen's loud rebuttal of whatever bloody point Bran just made, trying to slither off before either of them notices that he's doing a runner, and he's cheeks off the seat and feeling like he's got away with it fairly neatly when Bran grabs him round the middle in a sideways tackle and yells,

 

 

   “He's doing a runner - get his phone off him!” and Jojen swipes Rickon's phone from his hand in a flash, tutting as he looks at the open display where Rickon had already queued up the non-conversation with Shireen.

 

 

   “Just as I thought,” he says, thick with sympathy and disappointment, showing Bran who probably doesn't see much of it what with Rickon's palm in his face as he dislodges him from his belt loops one finger at a time, adding,

 

 

   “We should have taken it earlier. Still - no new messages.”

 

 

   Rickon finally manages to pry Bran off him and settle him back into his seat so he can snatch his phone from Jojen, who looks surprised at his presumption for all of a second, and then just treats him to a placid smile and the dubious compliment,

 

 

   “Proper grammar though, in all your texts. That's always a start.”

 

 

   “Yes, well, I'm hardly going to use bloody text-speak with a properly classy woman like that, am I?” Rickon snaps, gathering the shreds of his dignity and adjusting his trousers where Bran's ambush has totally wrecked his dressing system and pulled everything askew,

 

 

   “This isn't Tinder, for fuck's sake.”

 

 

   “If _I_ was on Tinder, I'd make a point of using proper grammar,” Bran comments, tipping back his glass and emptying it, then adding,

 

 

   “Best way to let people know what you're about. Weed out the unlikelies.”

 

 

   “Would you be on Tinder though? Or would you be on Grindr?” Jojen asks with interest, leaning in over the table and navigating his mouth over his straw blindly to suck loudly on what's left of his own drink as Bran considers the question.

 

 

   “I'm not sure,” he settles on, finally shrugging dismissively,

 

 

   “Maybe both? Not that it matters.”

 

 

   “Obviously,” Rickon snorts bitterly as they make smug doe-eyes at each other across the table, and with bad grace states,

 

 

   “Now if you're done chatting about your hypothetical app preferences, I'll be off for that whazz.”

 

 

   “Don't call her from the loo,” Jojen advises sternly,

 

 

   “It's bad form.”

 

 

   “Why would you think I'd - ” Rickon begins, baffled and frankly offended by the very idea, but he doesn't get much further than that because Bran makes a very loud, shocked sound that gets people on the other side of the room eyeing them.

 

 

   “I would _never_ call Meera from the loo,” Bran states emphatically, squinting earnestly at Jojen,

 

 

   “Never. She is - she is the _Jaffa Cake_ of women.”

 

 

   “Awww, that's lovely,” Jojen trills, going all soft in the head, fishing out his own phone,

 

 

   “I'm writing that down so we don't forget, she'll love that, she will.”

 

 

   “Poetic,” Rickon says stonily,

 

 

   “I'm off. Same again when I get back?”

 

 

   “No point - they'll be closing up in a bit anyway,” Bran decides,

 

 

   “I'll call us a cab, and we can go into town and use that Groupon! I feel like dancing.”

 

 

   Rickon can feel his pulse throb in his fingernails at the very suggestion of dragging his brother and Jojen to some brightly-coloured badly-lit open blister of a club where he'll have to choke down shots of fuck-knows-what from Bran's _bloody_ Groupon offer just to stand the hour at most of completely shite music battering his ears before Bran will inevitably get tired of shuffling about half-supported by Jojen and his cane and Rickon will have to carry him out and force-feed him at the nearest place that'll batter and fry a nun off the street so they won't get tossed out of whichever cab they order to get back home for throwing up all over the back since none of them have actually eaten anything pre-booze, but he can already tell Bran's not going to give up on this, so fighting it just seems more trouble than it's worth.

 

 

   “Fine. Whatever,” he grumbles as he makes his way off to the bog trying not to walk funny since Bran's apparently tugged his underwear right up his arse somehow, the interfering little prick.

 

 

   Thankfully there's no line, so once he's taken care of the more pressing business, he devotes a bit of time to rearranging his downstairs, and then hangs about to call Meera, because there's no way he'd call Shireen from a toilet, public or otherwise, on pain of death, but Meera's a mate, so it's fine, and also he needs to complain about Bran and Jojen to someone who'll plead his case in court later on that the murder was indeed just if they carry on the way they've been going so far tonight.

 

 

   “ _Rickon? Y'alright?_ ” she asks when she picks up, sounding relaxed and competent, and that along with the soothingly cool tiles of the wall against his forehead make him feel a bit better.

 

 

   “Yeah, fine - just wanted to let you know your lads've snookered me into a night out. We're down the Other Pub, and Bran's got some kind of Groupon for free shots in town,” he tells her straight.

 

 

   “ _Bunch of arse!_ ” she snarls,

 

 

   “ _I knew they couldn't be bloody trusted on their own - who's watching Summer?_ ”

 

 

   “One of your neighbours,” Rickon reassures her,

 

 

   “Little old biddy, thinks the sun shines out of Bran's everywhere? Me and Jojen went round while Bran was changing shirts.”

 

 

   “ _He changed shirts?_ ” she demands, and then groans loudly, warning him,

 

 

   “ _You know what that means. He was always going to have you ferry him into town. I don't know why he even pretends, anymore._ ”

 

 

   “I know, I know...” Rickon mumbles into the wall, letting the edge of a tile dig soothingly into his temple, grounding him,

 

 

   “They think I need distracting. I'll keep them out of trouble for you, yeah? Have them back soon as I can.”

 

 

   “ _Why's that? What's occurred?_ ” she asks him gently, and he heaves a deep sigh and shakes his head, even though she can't see.

 

 

   “Nothing, just... Bran'll probably tell you later anyway. It's fine. I'm fine. I've got to get back to them, alright? I'll keep you updated,” he says dully, and she makes a sound like a chicken settling back onto her eggs.

 

 

   “ _If you say so, pet, but if there's any bother, you ring me and I'll be right there, yeah? I'm only round Dad's, I told them I'd be gone 'til tomorrow. Did the shopping too, before I left, so there's food in the kitchen if you end up back there before me_ ,” she advises.

 

 

   “Standard,” he confirms,

 

 

   “Talk soon. Bye.”

 

 

   “ _Bye then._ ”

 

 

   He's just out of the loos when his phone rings, and he fishes it back out without looking as he holds the door open for someone going in after him.

 

 

   “Meera?” he guesses, nodding at the bloke passing him and letting go of the door, and there's a pause on the line before,

 

 

   “ _No, it's Shireen,_ ” and if he hadn't just meticulously re-aligned everything pertaining to his lower half to undo the damage Bran did earlier, he'd swear the lump in his throat was his own balls.

 

 

   “Sorry - just been speaking to my brother's girlfriend,” he excuses himself, hoping against hope that she'll accept the implied explanation as to why he answered the phone with another woman's name without further questions,

 

 

   “Hey, is everything alright? I texted back, earlier, but I don't know if you saw - ”

 

 

   “ _I did, just now,_ ” she interrupts, and she doesn't sound cross, which is some small comfort, even if it does leave him seething with curiosity as to what the hell she was doing all these hours between texting him and this sudden phone call which under any other circumstances he'd consider a bloody godsend,

 

 

   “ _I didn't mean to worry you. I fell asleep and my phone was on silent._ ”

 

 

   Of course it was. Of _course_ she did. How could he have been such a twat - of course Bran and Jojen were right and she'd have been tired after everything, of course there was nothing to worry about.

 

 

   The relief goes to his knees a bit, so he veers off to the side of the room and leans against the back of a booth for a spell, trying to keep the abject gratitude for this revelation out of his voice so he won't sound completely stupid.

 

 

   “No, it's fine - I mean, yeah I thought maybe something'd happened to your phone, but I'm glad you're alright,” he replies in a rush, sure she can hear the grin taking up most of his face and not too bothered by it. He doesn't want her to be in any doubt that he's pleased to hear from her.

 

 

   “ _The soppy protective thing's not worn off yet then..?_ ” she asks leadingly, bit of a tease in it, and he knows they're alright now. She wouldn't bring that up if they weren't, not like this, he's fairly sure, and even though it's ridiculous it makes him duck his head and turn into the wall so he can soak up the lovely glowy memory of this morning that comes with it, and it makes his voice a bit darker and huskier when he admits,

 

 

   “Not really, no...” and for a minute, he swears it's like it's just them and she might as well be there, he's that sure he can feel her smiling down the line at him just like he's doing at her, and then he remembers that she's not too thrilled with being coddled, and wavers slightly on,

 

 

   “Is that... alright?”

 

 

   “ _I'll survive,_ ” she says, and under the clink of glasses and raised voices around him, he can hear her little laugh, and it loosens the edges of his headache immediately, unravelling it neatly.

 

 

   “Good,” he tells her honestly, and she makes a sort of humming sound which he remembers her using this morning as a stand-in for an actual 'yes' to questions she's too comfortable to answer with words, and then she starts to ask,

 

 

   “ _Do you think you could -_ ”

 

 

   And someone right behind him calls his name. Loudly. And tugs him 'round to look at a swishing green ponytail and a bright grinning face, and he can feel his own falling hard before he manages to plaster on a semi-sincere smile and grunt,

 

 

   “Wylla - ” over her head as she knocks her chin into his chest pulling him into a tight and unexpected hug which is over as soon as it begins, holding him at arm's length and chattering,

 

 

   “Rickon - this isn't your local though, who're you here with? I thought I saw Bran and - oh, you're on the phone - soz, my mistake - ” and she pulls a face at her own interruption, then in a stage whisper and with embarrassingly exaggerated enunciation lets him know,

 

 

   “I moved Wex in, with bells on, you were right, it's all sorted - ” and probably at that point some of the horrible awkwardness starts bleeding into his slipping smile which is already more just him gritting his teeth than anything else, and she giggles and holds up a hand in front of her mouth, exclaiming,

 

 

   “Oops! I'll let you get on - come to the housewarming though, yeah? Event's on Facebook!” and then she slips away back into the crowd, leaving Rickon with dead silence on the line and the distinct feeling of something precious having just blown up in his face.

 

 

   “ _Rickon, are you in a pub?_ ” Shireen asks, all the warmth from just now missing from her voice, and he swallows thickly. He's beginning to understand why this is the Other Pub. It's clearly a terrible, awful place, where bad luck and circumstance conspire to converge on a person and shag them sideways without consent. He had no idea Wylla even lived near Bran. He's not even sure he's seen her since that day with Shireen at the hospital, and it's making his skin crawl as though somehow he's being singled out for fate to piss on and it wants to make sure he gets the message.

 

 

   “Yeah - yes, my brother was adamant he wanted to come out and his girlfriend's gone to visit her dad, and his boyfriend's - my brother's boyfriend, not his girlfriend's dad's boyfriend - who's actually his girlfriend's brother, he's none too reliable on his own, so I couldn't really say no and let them go off on their own, and...”

 

 

   And he's not making any real sense, he realises. Fuck knows what she must think is going on.

 

 

   **_You're a pillock and a wanker, and an eejit, and she was bound to find out eventually but did you have to make it this obvious this soon?_**

 

 

   “... _right_ ,” she says, a bit too slowly for him to trust that she bought anything he was just selling, or for that matter even recognised it for a sales pitch at all, and it brings his headache back full force in a flash, which is not helpful, especially not when she moves on to,

 

 

   “ _I won't keep you,_ ” which is... really not what he wants her to say, ever.

 

 

   “You're not though, honest, what did you want to ask me before?” he presses on, desperate to have it out of her so he can agree to whatever it was and put all this messy bollocks behind them, and she hesitates.

 

 

   Long enough for Bran to come tottering through the crowd on Jojen's elbow, and thwack Rickon on the shins with his stick, and say,

 

 

   “Oi! We're off - cab's here, what's taking so long?”

 

 

   “I'm on the phone,” Rickon hisses, and Bran waves and shouts,

 

 

   “Hey Meera!” like a tit, which makes Jojen giggle, setting Bran off, before he can shake himself and insist,

 

 

   “No, we're going dancing, come on, the cab's waiting!” and Rickon honestly wishes he could just disappear.

 

 

   “It's not Meera, it's Shireen,” he snaps,

 

 

   “Now sod off, the pair of you, I'll be there in a minute, fuck's sake!” but he knows for all he's covering his phone with his hand, she can hear everything, which she quickly backs up by telling him,

 

 

   “ _It's fine, have fun with your brother. I just wanted to ask whether you'd like to come 'round tomorrow so we could have that talk_ ,” and Rickon nods into the receiver at the same time as he gestures rudely and emphatically at Jojen and Bran, who exchange meaningful glances, the bastards, and then start making for the door.

 

 

   “I'd love to,” he blurts out, and immediately regrets it because it feels like he just expressed a really heartfelt wish to go 'round hers and have her crush all his dreams,

 

 

   “I mean - yes, I'll be there. Ten good for you?”

 

 

   **_Ten? Why would you say ten? You're about to take two complete tossers who are already properly marinated clubbing, what makes you think you can be sober and sensible by ten in the morning?_**

****

****

“ _That seems a bit early..._ ” Shireen replies warily, like she's reading his fucking mind, and yet for some reason he finds himself promising,

 

 

   “If it works for you, I'll be there. Text me the address?” as if he's just dying to hasten the inevitable cluster-fuck that is surely heralded by any statement like ' _we need to talk_ ', particularly when he's just made such a total arse of himself over the phone and probably given at least half the impression that he's out on the town with multiple other women, and yet here he is. Doing just that. Practically asking to be emotionally eviscerated. Like a twat.

 

 

   Wanting to see her is one thing, but surely some kind of self-preservation instinct should have kicked in by now so he can't actually _volunteer_ to go and sit down with her as soon as possible for what's probably going to be a long and painful conversation about how they'll never work and Sansa was right about everything and Rickon should just cancel any plans he had for a fulfilling future with the woman of his dreams and then just  _give_ her Shaggydog so at least one of them can be happy and living with the perfect woman.

 

 

   Part of his brain is making a sound as if he's going one-fifty down a B-road heading for a patch of slurry on uneven tarmac that'll send him face-first into a brick wall lightly camouflaged by a scruffy hedge.

 

 

   “ _If you're sure..._ ” she murmurs dubiously, and he does not blame her, but for some reason he also does not make any move to go in the opposite direction of the massive cock-up he's just managed to pull out of his own back passage. Which is exactly the right terrible backwards metaphor for how he's managing to mishandle this entire conversation.

 

 

   “I'm sure. Send me the address. I'll see you in the morning, alright? Sleep well,” he hears himself say over the sound of faulty brakes which is probably only happening in his own head.

 

 

   “ _Okay... you too,_ ” she tells him, and hangs up after a tense five seconds of complete silence.

 

 

   “Oh, fuck me,” he whimpers, putting his phone in his pocket and sprinting out of the pub, dodging a few elbows on his way since Bran was right enough earlier and about now seems the time of the great Exodus where everyone's either drinking up to get off home, or moving on to less casual pastures.

 

 

   Bran and Jojen look a wee bit alarmed when he dives into their cab and slams the door, but the cabbie's apparently seen this sort of wild-eyed booze-panic before, and just takes off to wherever Bran probably told him they were needing to go, as Bran demands,

 

 

   “What happened?”

 

 

   “I think I made an appointment for ten in the morning to have my arse handed to me, and I think I sounded excited about that when she asked me...” Rickon says hollowly, wedged between Bran's legs and Jojen's torso, staring blindly out of the window at passing cars and traffic lights.

 

 

   “It's alright,” Jojen says calmly, idly petting Rickon's arm,

 

 

   “You'll feel better once the Groupon kicks in.”

 

 

   “Are you _completely **fucking** mad_ \- ”

 

 

   “No, no, no, listen, right, he's right - alcohol is a depressant. It'll level you out, take the edge off all this doubt, alright?” Bran says confidently, cutting off Rickon's oddly strangled little half-rant, and in the haze of three and a half pints and a bad shock, he finds himself listening when he should have sought a third opinion and redirected the cab straight back home.

 

 

   Instead, he's five gelatinous orange shots in because some of them were free on this Groupon of Bran's at some club in town the name of which he has not even a glimmer of a memory of taking in, and it's three in the morning before he has the presence of mind to drag himself from the swamp of an _honest_ -to-fuck existentialist crisis, and stagger into the bog to toss up all his horrible, horrible life choices.

 

 

   The sinks are nearer the door than anything else, so that's where he finds himself, but no sooner has his head begun to clear now he's away from the press of people and Bran hanging off his arm and pressing nasty little glasses of swill on him, than perhaps the worst sound this evening's served him yet sleazes its way into his ears like a bad smell. Quickly followed by the realisation that there _is_ in fact a really bad smell that has nothing to do with unwisely mixed alcohols coming back for an encore on an iffy tummy caused by crushing dread.

 

 

   “'Ey up - tha's Rickon Stark, in't it?” Theon croaks from the corner where he is - and Rickon's not even surprised, just utterly repulsed by even the little bit he manages to catch with the aid of one cracked mirror and the shiny side of the hands-free soap dispenser before he can turn away and steer back to the sink furthest away from this depravity - perched on a urinal, quite clearly taking a dump.

 

 

   “Mental bastard,” Rickon grunts, swiping his hand under the tap and biting his tongue when the first one doesn't work - fucking _sensors_ on everything these days, supposedly so _bloody_ hygienic, and none of them ever bloody _work_ when you need them, he thinks viciously - forcing him to move down the line and closer to where Theon's hunched over himself propped up on one leg like a kickstand and bracing himself against innocent porcelain that will never be fit for human use again after tonight, frantically waving at Rickon with his free hand. The violent movement alone turns Rickon's stomach all over again.

 

 

   “It _is_ fuckin' Rickon Stark - I've not seen you in _ages_ \- ” he shrieks, and then his expression goes as sly in the reflection on the dirty second tap which also - _shocker_ \- doesn't work as his voice goes slimy as he comments,

 

 

   “But then I hear you've been proper busy, gettin' yer mutton steamed down Doe Lane - s'pose that makes it venison, yeah?”

 

 

   “What the _fuck_ are you on about?” Rickon demands, disgusted, desperate to just scrub his tongue and then find some sort of brain-sanitiser, trying not to actually _look_ at him, and Theon giggles.

 

 

   “Oh, give over - you know what I'm sayin',” he carries on, even though Rickon honestly feels like it's fairly clear that isn't something he's interested in, but the little tosser just eyes him sideways and waggles his eyebrows and sticks his tongue out so exaggeratedly that Rickon's not completely sure it's not just some kind of intestinal distress, before finally proclaiming,

 

 

   “That Baratheon girl, one who's been on the news; you sausaged her, didn't you?”

 

 

   “Was there some kind of bloody segment about _that_ on the news and all?” Rickon mumbles to himself, trying his best to ignore the bastard, but Theon's high-pitched screech of triumph is literally worse than the bloody awful techno making the mirrors shake, so it's no-go.

 

 

   “You fuckin' have! I can' _fuckin'_ believe it - I thought no _way_ Robb had it right-ways up - you of all people - you know your old dad kicked me out fer spyin' on that girl, and here was me jus' tryin' ta do you lot a good turn, puttin' you on to a good thing, an' _you_ had t' go and bugger it up for us, and now here you are takin' just as much _advantage_ of 'er as I ever bloody did, and more!” he crows, actual tears of mirth gathering in the corners of his eyes, bloody beside himself with glee,

 

 

   “She's only just come off life support, or whatever, in't it? You remember y' _actually_ fuckin' punched me in the cock back then for showin' you lot her window an' all, y' fuckin' weapon? Robb is goin' 'a _piss_ himself when he hears it's true, this is _classic_ \- ”

 

 

   “ _Right_ ,” Rickon snarls, entire world narrowing to his own boots ringing on the sticky floor and the empty thud the back of Theon's head makes colliding with the wall when Rickon puts both hands around his scrawny, greasy neck and leans his entire weight on him, the satisfaction of Theon's eyes crossing and then going wide as he finally shuts up absolutely worth the harrowing push of bile in his throat at being this close to Theon and moving as quickly as he did to get here, but Rickon doesn't let that get in his way, because he's fucking _had_ it.

 

 

   “You listen here, you filthy little perv,” he hisses, baring his teeth much too close to Theon's twitching nose,

 

 

   “I don't know who the fuck you've been talking to, or who _Robb's_ been talking to, but if you don't stop gossiping about me, and what I may or may not be doing, and who with, _first_ I'll tell your sister all about what you've been getting up to lately, and _then_ ,” he tightens his grip on Theon's neck with relish for a second, pausing for effect,

 

 

   “Then I'll come and find you when you're just like this somewhere, and I'll make you _eat_ your own shit. At least then when you open your gob about town and nothing but crap falls out of it, it'll be for an honest reason. Understand?”

 

 

   The thin noise that works its way up past Rickon's constricting fingers seems on the face of it like it's probably an agreement, so Rickon lets him go, taking a quick step back in case the bastard's legs give out and there's any risk of splash-back, but Theon seems well able to steady himself on the next urinal over, if a bit bulgy-eyed, and Rickon watches him heave a breath or two just to make sure he's more or less undamaged even if there is a somewhat fresher stench of piss in the air than there was just before, and then he has to ask, morbidly curious,

 

 

   “What the eff are you even doing, taking a dump in a urinal? What's wrong with the lavs?”

 

 

   “They're - out of order,” Theon gulps, massaging his neck tenderly and blinking back a few tears, and Rickon could throw up just on the strength of that.

 

 

   “And _this_ isn't? Bloody hell, mate - get _yourself_ in order,” he snaps, sick of the sight of him, and he moves for one of the sinks he's not tried before at random, swipes at the sensor to get the water on, punches the soap dispenser to make it yield a bit of stringy goopy mess that smells like lavender's off-brand cousin, and makes quick work of scrubbing his hands so he can make as neat a job of bringing up the ill-considered orange shots from earlier, wash out his mouth and then his hands again, and flick them mostly dry.

 

 

   “Y' know I 'eard 'er face is a right state,” Theon says cruelly, his best parting shot as Rickon turns to leave,

 

 

   “Not that I ever saw - but I remember she was almost worth your little tantrum all them years ago, through the window, even if she's not on your sister's level. Reckon she still looks like that? Or does it all match now, after the fire - ”

 

 

   He doesn't get any further than that before Rickon's grabbed him again and shoved him face-first into his own vile mess, holding him there even as the stupid tosser hasn't the sense to stop shrieking and keep his mouth shut, pushing down until he has to stop protesting because his teeth are grinding into the porcelain.

 

 

   “I bloody told you and you didn't listen,” he grates, releasing him to let Theon scrabble and spit and screech, and Rickon feels absolutely no remorse about pulling out his phone to take a picture of it, caption it ' _Shit-faced and shit-for-brains and still can't use a toilet_ ', and send it to Theon's sister.

 

 

   Then he washes his hands again, ignoring the sound of dry-heaving behind him, and leaves the bog to go straight to the bar, order himself a pint of proper beer to settle his stomach - bit of liquid bread, lovely - and locates Bran and Jojen, finally tired of pottering about the dance-floor and nursing glasses at a table off to the left.

 

 

   “Drink up, we're leaving,” he lets them know, voice still tight with how difficult it was not to just smash Theon's face into the floor as well as into his own muck, and feeling dirty all over about the entire encounter, setting his drink on the table hard.

 

 

   “What? Why? What happened?” Bran asks, looking around as if expecting so see evidence of some kind of cataclysmic event, and Rickon gets his phone out to show it to him.

 

 

   “Met Theon in the bog. Didn't go well,” he says shortly, and Bran inhales deeply and then holds his breath.

 

 

   “What brought that on?” Jojen asks, looking as well, not scandalised so much as intrigued, and Rickon glares across the room at the still-closed door to the men's and gives them the facts.

 

 

   “He wouldn't shut up. Talked about Shireen and me. Mentioned Sansa. Lost my head.”

 

 

   “Well on his own head be it then,” Jojen says airily, as if that settles it,

 

 

   “Might be good for him.”

 

 

   “Doubt it. Bell-end,” Rickon growls, reaching blindly for his pint, only to be stabbed in the eye with one of those bastard swizzle-stick numbers meant to look like a sparkler that's really just a sort of frilly holographic plastic jobby stuck to the end of an extra-long toothpick, which is just as well since it makes him put the glass back on the table with a resounding,

 

 

   “ _Fuck me!_ ” before he can actually take a swig off what is clearly Jojen's fruity rum-vodka-fairy's-blood concoction.

 

 

   “As long as you're alright,” Bran declares, passing back Rickon's phone and then cheerfully draining his own glass, asking,

 

 

   “So we're off?”

 

 

   “We're off,” Rickon confirms, following suit, and Jojen pulls all the bells and whistles out of his glass and does the same, and then picks up Bran's stick and tucks it under his arm.

 

 

   “Oh right - you'll have to carry me,” Bran says without batting an eyelid,

 

 

   “Leg's on the blink.”

 

 

   Which leads to Rickon awkwardly moving through about a million-odd people to leave the sodding place, Bran on his back like a toddler and spurring him on by pulling his hair and shouting completely unnecessary directions.

 

 

   By the time they're actually outside again, Rickon's not even shocked to see,

 

 

   “Clegane? The fuck are you doing here?” but the massive bastard just points to the large white print on his black shirt which clearly spells out 'STAFF' and raises an eyebrow like he doesn't feel a need to draw attention to Rickon's pathetic lack of observational skills when it would be so easy.

 

 

   “Bouncing townies who can't take a hint,” he says gruffly, nodding at Bran over Rickon's shoulder,

 

 

   “Y'alright getting that one home?”

 

 

   “Fine yeah, we'll take a cab,” Rickon tells him, shaking his head for no reason, feeling like his body's starting to disconnect entirely from what his brain wants, and then suddenly Jojen's hand's digging into his hip on the wrong side of his pocket and Rickon's,

 

 

   “OI!” does nothing to stop this bloody outrage, but he's too wrung out to stay insulted when he realises that Jojen's actually holding Rickon's phone up to show Clegane something, whilst brightly wittering on,

 

 

   “You see this turd-covered knob-wipe? Theon Greyjoy? Has a history of annoying Starks - Sansa cannot stand him and surely you can see why - he's in the toilet somewhere in your fine establishment - can't miss him, he was abusing the facilities, as well as everyone's sense of decency. You might want to look into that.”

 

 

   “Will do,” Clegane rumbles slowly, cutting his eyes from the picture to Jojen's innocently concerned face, to Rickon, and then he gives him a slight jerk of the head that could mean anything from ' _I'll take care of your mess_ ' to ' _Get the fuck out of my sight_ '.

 

 

   “Have a lovely night!” Jojen wishes him, which Rickon can see makes no impact, but when he nods to Clegane and then starts making his way past the queue to get in, he hears a rough, hard,

 

 

   “Stark - give your sister a break, alright? She knows she went too far. And take care of that little lass. She deserves better'n you.”

 

 

   “Sod off,” Rickon tells him. He doesn't need to clarify - Clegane'll know what it means.

 

 

   Meanwhile, Jojen is trying to find a cab number on Rickon's phone _and_ trying to make his poncy vape-thingy work, _and_ mumbling about kebabs, and Bran pipes up,

 

 

   “NO kebabs - you'll only get the runs again - ” which wasn't something Rickon wanted to hear, let alone that close to his ear, and Jojen stops in the middle of the street, transfixed by a large, yellow sign just down the road.

 

 

   “Breakfast special,” he reads too loudly, with reverence,

 

 

   “We can split an onion bhaji!”

 

 

   “A bloody _curry breakfast_ , though?” Rickon demands, squinting at the obnoxious sign which is in fact attached to a very out-and-proud curry-serving establishment, and Jojen just shrugs.

 

 

   “Well yeah, they're doing a special, it'll sober up Bran, and there's a second time for everything,” he says affably through a plume of melon vape as if that and all the life choices that led up to this moment weren't utterly and completely fucking ridiculous.

 

 

   “I want a curry!” Bran shrieks into Rickon's ear, which just makes him flinch and nearly topples them both over, and Jojen reaches up to fluff Bran's ill-advised haircut again as Rickon staggers under the weight of him and coughs through synthetic melon flavouring and his knobheaded brother choking him.

 

 

   “I don't fucking have _time_ to take you for a sodding curry,” he rasps,

 

 

   “I don't even bloody like them!”

 

 

   “Have some chips then,” Jojen suggests vaguely, starting to head in the rough direction of the place and sloshing through a puddle that looks like it's mostly sick, which honestly doesn't bode well for said restaurant.

 

 

   “Absolutely bloody not,” Rickon decides, hoisting up Bran and ordering,

 

 

   “You will call Meera and tell her we'll be waiting _just outside_ that curry house there, and that if she doesn't come and get us _right now_ I'm probably going to be arrested for assault.”

 

 

   “Theon's not going to admit to anyone that you made him Tom-Daley into his own shite,” Bran scoffs heartily, sniggering a bit at his own cleverness, and Rickon sets his teeth.

 

 

   “I didn't say it'd be for assaulting _Theon_ ,” he says tightly.

 

 

   Everyone sits very quietly for the thirty-nine minutes it takes Meera to drive from her dad's into town to pick them up, by which time the onion bhaji Rickon bought for Bran and Jojen to share has been mostly eaten, and then made a surprise encore, and Rickon has nervously peeled an entire plate full of chips with his fingers like shelling peas, and given himself a leg cramp because he can't stop tapping his foot.

 

 

   They all manage to sleep on the drive back to Bran's, and only Bran and Jojen get a bollocking off Meera when they get back.

 

 

   Rickon gets tucked into the spare bed with a kiss on the forehead and a tender expression he doesn't even notice before he's out, long before the lights.

 

 

   -

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

   At the arse crack of dawn, a little bird just outside the spare bedroom window starts screaming bloody murder about the sun rising, in case the jagged shards of unseasonably optimistic morning sunlight invading the vista and the room by extension weren't enough of a giveaway, and about five seconds after that Meera's rather brighter and more melodious presence joins the sensory barrage and puts an end to any hope of pretending the day hasn't begun yet.

 

 

   She at least has the decency to come bearing a very large mug of very strong tea and some painkillers, he sees, prising open his eyes in spite of the light bouncing off the magnolia walls and directly into his skull. The window's curtains are largely ornamental lacy numbers, but they're not even drawn shut to try and do their supposed jobs, he notes bitterly, swallowing what feels to the prodding of his swollen tongue like half a bottle of ibuprofen down with a searing mouthful of tea that burns right through his stomach lining and pools in his pelvic floor as he tries to get his bearings.

 

 

   Possibly he just needs a piss, he muses hazily, as Meera says something promising about bacon waiting downstairs for good lads who get themselves sorted, showered, and sober, and he squints at her as he swills tea at a steady rate to scourge the sins of last night with fire and flood, and nods slowly at all the bits that sound like they need nodding at.

 

 

   “There's a good 'un,” she coos finally,

 

 

   “You've all you need in the bog, and there's clothes on that chair there. See you shortly.”

 

 

   Between this grainy blink and the next, she's off, and he manages to finish all the tea without any accidents, and take a punt at standing up.

 

 

   The first go is an absolute disgrace, but after he's had a bit of a whimper with his legs hanging off the bed and the rest of him clammily clinging to a pillow, he gives it another whack, and this time he does make it to the loo, stumble into the shower, and bash the knob successfully to yield a comfortingly tepid drizzle of water to curl up under.

 

 

   It takes him a minute for all the indignities of last night to come back to him in high-definition, but once he _does_ recall rubbing Theon Greyjoy's nose in his own muck, he's no choice but to expel a disgusted,

 

 

   “ _Bloody_ hell - ” and take a swipe at the soap so he can get to scrubbing off, because he might have washed his hands afterwards, but having touched that rank little bastard and just fallen into bed again later on, shower-less and defiled by the contact, doesn't bear thinking of, and it's only some moments after when he's dragging lather through his unwilling hair that he realises why Meera's even seen fit to wake him so early when usually she is the heart and soul of angelic sainthood on mornings after he's had Bran and Jojen out and given her some time to herself and wouldn't _dream_ of waking him for anything less than an emergency; there _is_ a sodding emergency, he made _plans_ -

 

 

   “ _Fuck me -_ ” he manages through the debris still lining his throat, as he both remembers telling Meera all about his promise to meet Shireen at ten this morning, _and_ dumps a handful of soap directly into his own eye when the shock of clarity has him opening it out of pointless reflex.

 

 

   The stinging clears his head by quite some, but it does nothing for his wretched soul, and he leans miserably against the wall for a long, despondent stretch of time and does bugger-all to speed the process of rinsing out all his hair purely to have an excuse to wallow in the renewed countdown to having his heart broken by what is arguably the only girl he's ever met who seems anything _like_ a sound future prospect.

 

 

   He'll never be able to face Shaggy again after this, he thinks gloomily, letting himself tear up a bit because you're probably supposed to rinse your eyes out after slathering them with soap like a hapless ninny, and he knows his bloody dog will never forgive him for cocking it up with someone they actually _both_ really like...

 

 

   Rickon doesn't fancy his odds on getting through this without everything coming down to Sansa's somehow ending up being right now that she's laid down her own little self-fulfilling prophecy about he and Shireen not working out, and he'll be buggered sideways if he's going to let her weasel out of the credit once it does all go to shit, because if she'd only left he and Shireen to their own devices, everything would have come out right in the end. They were doing fine before everyone else started sticking their bloody noses into it, and now _somehow_ it's reached the likes of Theon _bloody_ Greyjoy that Rickon's been there, so any hope in hell Rickon might have had of keeping a bit of this sodding business to himself and preserving the lovely little bubble of calm and privacy surrounding he and Shireen's being together is well and truly as shattered as he feels right now.

 

 

_What a bloody mess._

   Frustrated, he knocks the temperature down to freezing and suffers the wrath of the water going from boiling to frigid quicker than he can even work up fitting reactions to either, penance for not thinking, for being such a trusting _tit_ about how obviously he was carrying on with Shireen as though he doesn't have the world's least considerate and most nosy family on record, because even if he doesn't believe Theon got the news from Sansa direct given how repulsed she is by him even to this day, sure enough Theon got it from _somewhere_ , and the only somewhere it could have originated from _is_ Sansa.

 

 

   She's the only one who saw Rickon and Shireen together, she's the only one who could have blabbed to someone who then _clearly_ blabbed to someone else.

 

 

   Or _multiple_ someones, even, Rickon thinks darkly - it's not like his family to be sensitive about this sort of information. Juicy gossip about him comes 'round only once in a blue moon if that. Knowing them they'll each have been chomping at the bit to share it with the rest if it fell handily into their lap that Shireen Baratheon of recent local news and being-Sansa's-friend fame had spent the night with Rickon and been caught all but in the act by Sansa in Rickon's driveway on the morning after.

 

 

   Elsewhere in the house, Meera's voice cuts into his brooding by waking up Bran and Jojen each by their full name and in tones that are a world removed from the dulcet ones she employed to wake Rickon.

 

 

   He lets himself feel a bit of vicious glee at that. Those ruddy eejits deserve a rude awakening, useless tossers that they are.

 

 

   Moments later, he hears a gentle tapping on the bathroom door and a much calmer Meera asking,

 

 

   “Y'alright, pet? I've put the kettle on - you'll need to come down now so's to make time for a bite before we've got to be off.”

 

 

   “Thanks, yeah - be right down,” he replies, raising his voice scratchily to be heard over the water, and she hums through the door and leaves him to it.

 

 

   He's harsher than he needs to be on himself drying off, glaring at his own bleary and partially steam-obscured reflection as he brushes his teeth, and has managed to claw his way to a fair head of steam at the situation he's ended up in and what a complete berk he's been about it all so far by the time he's ready to get dressed in the clothes Meera's put out for him.

 

 

   He has absolutely no regrets about he and Shireen except maybe a bit of a niggle that in an ideal world, he'd have been inclined to take the time to actually get to know her properly before taking it further and to be fair the way they've done it might be construed as a bit backwards and sudden-like, but it's no worse than millions of other people do all the time, and in his defence he both knew and liked her well before anything occurred between them, so he's completely ready to say a hearty bollocks to anyone who might feel like judging either of them for it.

 

 

   What he really regrets is that he's barely had time to come to terms with the fact that he and Shireen happened at all before it's apparently the talk of the town that it did, because if he had his way, no one would have **_known_** _at all._

Not that he isn't feeling fairly proud that she'd have anything to do with him in the first place, for he is that - he just hates that this cuts short any time they might have had to make sense of it together without everyone they know interfering like the shower of bastards they continue to prove themselves by having no sense of when to leave well enough alone.

 

 

   That, and he at least knows about Shireen that she's as much a lover of privacy as he is. He cannot imagine her being thrilled when this inevitably comes back to her and she's faced with awkward questions and the soon-to-be-obvious fact that everyone _knows_. In fact, the greater part of his misery is for his conclusion that it probably already _has_ come back to her that people know all about it, and that it's likely just as much a reason why she wants to talk to him and send him packing as Sansa's untimely intervention giving Shireen cause to second-guess her decisions so far in re Rickon and make her wary of getting into anything with him right now even if it _is_ too late to change her mind about getting in bed with him in the first place.

 

 

   Sore and scowling through the headache the painkillers have yet to have any tangible effect on, Rickon manages to resent how soft and pleasant the emergency clothes he stashes at Bran's and which Meera has brought out for this occasion are; he's not in the mood to be kind to himself or his surroundings, and all he's looking forward to from today is a chance to find out which of his siblings has been telling tales about him to the point where he's being confronted by random bastards about it when he leaves the house _not twenty four hours_ after the initial event, so he can punish the faithless party accordingly.

 

 

   If there's one thing he hates above all else, it's having his private doings become everyone's common knowledge.

 

 

   Perhaps, he acknowledges stiffly to himself as he navigates the stairs and makes his way towards the kitchen in a glowering huffy slouch relying mainly on the scent of bacon to guide his descent since his other senses are failing him, he should have thought twice before being _quite_ so obvious with Shireen in his own garage, but _equally_ , he feels, his family should learn to call in advance before dropping in on him.

 

 

   Just because he's usually the most boring one of the lot of them doesn't mean he doesn't deserve the respect of gestures like that just in case he _does_ happen to be doing something he'd quite like to keep to himself.

 

 

   Hugely bitter over the entire farce, he clomps into the kitchen on disappointingly silent socked feet, inwardly cursing his lurker's gift when it'd be so satisfying to make a row when he's in this mood and Bran and Jojen aren't even up yet, the lazy buggers, and he collapses into the chair Meera's set by the breakfast table, hunched into his hoodie and plotting revenge for whoever spilled the beans badly enough to definitely cost him a proper chance with Shireen.

 

 

   “Oh, there y'are,” Meera greets him gently, dripping sympathy and overall competence by the stove,

 

 

“Thought I'd have to call you again. Head still bad, is it?”

 

 

   Rickon's not proud of the ungracious sound he makes. It isn't _Meera's_ fault that his brother is a twat or that _her_ brother's just as much of one, or that Rickon's willpower wasn't what it should have been yesterday and he managed to justify going along with their nonsense to himself as a sort of convoluted favour to her even though in hindsight he can see that maybe he just used that to excuse his higher faculties the job of having to resist a pushy Bran too hard when most of Rickon's brainpower was otherwise occupied by miserable pining and anxiety over the whole Shireen-not-answering-issue.

 

 

   It's not _Meera's_ fault that all _that's_ going to be over before it's had much a go of it, either. _She's_ not responsible for Rickon's lack of judgment or Sansa's inability to keep anything to herself.

 

 

   Thankfully, Meera _is_ a sensitive, nurturing, tender goddess of home and hearth, and she does not hold Rickon's foul mood against him in the slightest, or berate him for not being able to dredge up a pleasant tone at this hour and with all this hanging over him like the ghost of those disgusting orange shots he never should have had last night and should have gotten off his chest long before he did.

 

 

   “You do look a sight, but it's not as bad as before,” she reassures a dormant worry he wasn't even aware he had before she brought it up and smoothed it away in the same sentence,

 

 

   “Bit of breakfast will do the world of good, I reckon - no one need never know what a state you were in.”

 

 

   Relief over Meera diagnosing him to be likely ready for public consumption once he's had the bacon butty he clocks she's so lovingly crafting at the counter is no match for the horror that follows a quick grope through his pockets which reveals that his phone is missing.

 

 

   Obviously, it is. These are his emergency clothes. Meera laid them out for him. There's no earthly reason for him to expect his phone to be hiding in them, but somehow, his brain did expect that, and now it's come up short, he realises he has no fucking idea where his phone is, and he doesn't remember the particulars of the address Shireen texted him -

 

 

   “ _Meera, where's my -_ ” he starts, a bit shriller and more panicky than he'd like, but she heads him off at the pass by plonking his phone down in front of him and returning to the fine art of the butty.

 

 

   “You left it with me last night so's I could look up the address you need to be at,” she tells him in that lovely reasonable voice of hers,

 

 

   “And because Jojen wanted to show me a picture you took at the club, but you wouldn't let him in case he'd manage to delete the text with the address on it - which I _have_ looked up, _stop_ fretting, I know where it is and how long it'll take to get there, we're in _plenty_ of time,” she says in response to the weird noise that works its way up his throat at the thought that _he doesn't actually know where he's supposed to be and Meera might not have checked yet which could slow everything down and make him late for a ten AM bollocking **he arranged himself**_ \- an unimaginable consequence that would mean he'd never be able to show his face anywhere ever again for the shame of it and honestly brings him out in an immediate cold sweat that has nothing to do with his headache - but of course there's no need to live in fear of that, Meera's got him sorted, as always, he should have had faith, and he interrupts to humbly admit as much.

 

 

   “I'm sorry, I didn't really think you'd 've steered me wrong, I'm just a bit...” he tapers off weakly. She can obviously see what he is, and she's known him long enough there's no chance he managed to hide the least bit of his little hysterical fit there, but she just chortles at him. He does not blame her. He _is_ ridiculous, it's a fair cop.

 

 

   “I can see that,” she lets him off easily, and then, as he extends his clammy hands to cradle his phone and check that the precious text from Shireen is intact as promised, Meera asks,

 

 

   “Was there an interesting picture, or was that just one of Jojen's fancies? He was all a-flutter about whatever it was, but his explanation didn't make a lick of sense.”

 

 

   Guiltily, Rickon leans in over the table to shield his phone as though Meera's like as not to swoop in and grab it off him again and go through it for evidence of his crimes, which is an absurd thing to do, but apparently she's willing to forgive all his furtive bollocks and he's just feeling a bit raw and cagey this morning - **_though for good reason_** , he gives himself _that_ much - and there's not a hint of expectation in her, so he finally sighs and uncurls, and confesses.

 

 

   “We met Theon at the club - well, I did - and we had... _words_... and... I took a picture and sent it to his sister...”

 

 

   No priest would accept that as is, he knows, and though she's a sight more tactful than the clergy, Meera is no different on that score. She squints at him and wrinkles her nose and scoffs,

 

 

   “To Asha? Why would you send a picture of him to _Asha_? She's no more fond of his ugly mug than I am. Talk sense, lad.”

 

 

   “It'll put you right off your breakfast,” Rickon warns, but Meera just stares him down, and there's no help for it.

 

 

   “It's not pretty,” he tells her, finding the picture and slipping her the phone, and she takes it and stands in puzzled silence for a minute.

 

 

   “Theon's not pretty at the best of times,” she says at last, slowly,

 

 

   “For all he'd beg to differ - not by my reckoning, any rate - but I'm not sure being covered in what looks like _shit_ is his _best_ look. Did you catch him blowing up a public loo or something?”

 

 

   Her baffled expression is tempered with not a little disgust, but when Rickon reveals, albeit hesitantly,

 

 

   “He was taking a dump in the urinal because the lav was out of order,” she expels,

 

 

   “What, and taking a shit in a urinal _isn't_ out of order? Fuck's sake!” with vigour, and the balmy feeling of vindication surrounds Rickon's soul like a comforting blanket fresh from the tumble dryer after a long wet ride down the traffic-clogged m-way.

 

 

   “'S just what I said,” he says smugly, and she gives him a dubious look.

 

 

   “Yeah, well - how'd he end up like this then? You said the two of you had words. Can't have been just because he's a daft bloody knob-head who for some reason still isn't toilet-trained even at his age,” she remarks, waggling the offending image displayed on his phone at him, and Rickon winces.

 

 

   “Er... _no_... I did that,” he comes clean, although having to look at his handiwork and Meera's shocked face makes him feel dirty and sick all over again.

 

 

   “You did this? _This?_ ” she demands, shoving the phone back at him, and Rickon takes it back with a guilty nod, hanging his head.

 

 

   “You're telling me you rubbed Theon's face in his own shite?” Meera enunciates very clearly.

 

 

   He nods again. In the cold light of day, it occurs to him that he should have thought twice about it, and that he deserves to be judged by an impartial third party. Meera might as well do it, for all she's clearly a mite biased in his favour, he can live with punishing himself for whatever part she doesn't.

 

 

“That's not like you, to get all het up like that,” she says soothingly, no indication that she intends to judge him whatsoever in her tone, and he jerks his head up unwisely to gawk at this spectacle as she presses on,

 

 

   “I thought you were used to what a pillock Theon can be - what'd he say to upset you so?”

 

 

   “Well, no,” Rickon agrees haltingly, scuffing his feet on the floor and wishing he had a dog to hide behind,

 

 

   “Not _usually_... He just... he just got on my tits, banging on about me and Shireen - ”

 

 

   “Oh, yeah - that Baratheon girl you've been knobbing,” Meera interrupts, bright and blunt as hellfire, nodding in recognition, getting Rickon's back right up in under two seconds flat and making him straighten like he's had the Devil's own pitchfork rammed up his arse unexpectedly and snap,

 

 

   “I have _not_ been _knobbing_ Shireen - how the bloody hell is it everyone knows about us, anyway? It's not been _two **days**_ , she _literally_ left mine _yesterday **morning**_ , am I being _watched?_ Why is this suddenly all anyone can talk about?!”

 

 

   “Alright, alright, steady on,” Meera replies calmly, turning a bit of bacon,

 

 

   “ _You_ were the one who told me about her, remember? Last night, in the car. That's why I got you up early, so I can take you 'round hers.”

 

 

   “I remember telling you I needed to be there by ten; I _never_ bloody said anything about the two of us being like that, and I _definitely_ did not tell you I was _knobbing_ her, of all blessed things,” Rickon points out darkly,

 

 

   “I do have _some_ class.”

 

 

   “Fair enough,” Meera says agreeably, poking away at the bacon with her spatula, and then turning a raised eyebrow his way, allowing,

 

 

   “Maybe that wasn't exactly how you described it, but I got the gist of it. I doubt you'd be making plans for ten in the morning with a _mate_.”

 

 

   “I might do,” Rickon defends himself, digging his hands into his hoodie pockets and hunching his shoulders,

 

 

   “If there was a need...”

 

 

   Meera says nothing. He's sure she's still not judging him, but he feels the need to explain just the same,

 

 

   “Anyway, no, she's not just a mate, and she did stay 'round mine 'til yesterday morning - not that it was planned, it just happened that way - ”

 

 

   “Let me stop you right there,” Meera says calmly, holding up her spatula, and he shuts his mouth and lets her tell him,

 

 

   “I don't need to know what's going on with you two. You don't need to justify yourselves to me. You're both adults - I'm assuming - and you're entitled to whatever goings-on you get up to as long as you're both on the same page about it, and I know you're not the sort who'd go ahead with something if that wasn't the case.”

 

 

   “I hope Bran tells you every day how lucky he is to know you,” Rickon blurts, completely gobsmacked, perhaps more so than he should be, come to think, given what he knows of Meera's general attitude towards relationships and the like, and she shrugs delicately, admitting,

 

 

   “He could stand to say it more often, but he does alright, ta',” and then she prompts,

 

 

   “So what about this Theon business. He said some things about you and this girl, is that the size of it?”

 

 

   “That's about it, yeah,” Rickon confirms, slightly stumped now that he's been absolved of any need to explain himself further or provide any back-story on he and Shireen, and Meera just shrugs again, rather more carelessly, and remarks,

 

 

   “Well, I've met Theon, so I can imagine the sort of thing he'd have to say for himself. He got what was coming, I expect.”

 

 

   “Well, he mentioned Sansa as well, that didn't help,” Rickon tells her, and she nods sympathetically, letting him go on,

 

 

   “I mean - she's part of the problem, but that doesn't make it alright for Theon to go off about her, I couldn't stand for that,” and Meera frowns.

 

 

   “What problem, pet? You mentioned last night something was up - something Bran thought going out would be a nice distraction from, the silly bugger - ” she homes in on, her voice fondly disparaging of Bran but perhaps a bit _less_ fond than she might usually be, clearly clocking that Bran's motives for wanting to go out always had more to do with his own desires than the excuse of it doing Rickon any good at all,

 

 

   “Did something happen with Sansa and this girl, some bit of bother? Sansa not like you bringing her 'round yours without a by-your-leave?”

 

 

   “Not... exactly?” Rickon squirms in his seat uncomfortably, trying to relax his jaw enough to tell the twisted tale in a way that isn't a garbled mess,

 

 

   “And I didn't _bring_ Shireen anywhere, she dropped 'round off her own bat so we could talk, after I went home early from that park fundraiser thing you'll have seen on Facebook, Sansa's project - the _problem's_ mainly Sansa didn't _know_ Shireen'd stayed over 'til yesterday morning when _she_ got home after staying 'round Myrcella's. I don't think she's got anything against it being Shireen as _such_... They're mates, really. They've been mates since Shireen was in hospital - she's Myrcella's cousin, they met through her while Shireen was - ”

 

 

   “She's the one off the news, isn't she?” Meera cuts him off bluntly, with a hard look,

 

 

   “The one whose mum tried to do her in. The one Sansa's been nattering on about for months to anyone who'd listen.”

 

 

   “... yes,” Rickon sighs, crumpling completely under the implied condemnation in the question and seemingly painted all over Meera's face.

 

 

   “I'll ask you a question now, and don't take it the wrong way, but if you don't have the right answer, I'll not be best pleased,” Meera lines up, tightly neutral,

 

 

   “And I'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt because I've known you a long while, so don't mess me about on this; _why_ did you shag this clearly vulnerable mate of Sansa's, who's probably got enough on her plate as is, trying to get her life back on track?”

 

 

   Rickon looks her right in the eye.

 

 

   “Because she came 'round mine, and we had a chat about how she's been getting on, and we both wanted to,” he tells her with all the sombre dignity in him, although a bit of the polish rubs off it in qualifying,

 

 

   “Why _she_ wanted to isn't really for me to say, so I can't help you there, but as far as _I_ go she's an absolute blinder, we've got loads in common, and Shaggy's in love with her, so if you think I did it just because I _could_ , you've got the wrong end of it.”

 

 

   “Right then,” Meera replies affably, adjusting the pan,

 

 

   “So what's Sansa's problem?”

 

 

   “That's it? You're not going to hand me my arse for mucking about with Shireen even though she's _fragile_ and what-have-you?” Rickon demands, deeply suspicious and on the defensive, and Meera just shrugs.

 

 

   “'S not what you're doing though, is it, so it's not my place to judge or have a go at you. If you say you had it out with her and you're convinced she was up to making that choice, I believe you. I've known you since you were _three_ , Rickon, you'd hardly be after this girl if she wasn't something special, not when you're usually liable to run a mile from the very idea of being social let alone a new person, and you're not the sort of lad who goes for the sad ones just because it's a job half-done for you,” Meera puts across, like there's naught else to be said for it, and Rickon feels the acid of bitter betrayal sting his throat and snarls,

 

 

   “Makes you the only one then - Sansa's known me all my _life_ , and _she_ didn't seem to feel the same way. Practically accused me of taking advantage of her grieving mate, like I'm no better than the Theons of this world!”

 

 

   “Whatever she said in anger, I'm sure she didn't mean it,” Meera says charitably, frowning a bit, then adding practically,

 

 

   “But she probably still should have kept her bloody mouth shut. I don't doubt that's how word got out - how else _Theon_ could have got wind of it, and so soon, I can't see, and I know _I_ only knew because I had it from Bran who had it from you,” Meera shakes her head crossly and sighs,

 

 

   “She's a love, your sister, but she can't half go on and she's a sight too nosy for her own good. I've told her before, and I'll tell her again next chance I get.”

 

 

   “It's alright, it's fine,” Rickon sighs dully, deflating, apparently not quite up to maintaining righteous indignation and anger for longer than a minute or so at a time, sinking low in his seat and leaning on the table,

 

 

   “I understand _why_ she reacted like she did, and she apologised later after I told her to just talk to Shireen about it if she was really so worried I might've actually somehow _tricked_ her into something she wasn't ready for - it wasn't really _about_ me, Sansa admits that, she was just surprised and she jumped to conclusions and got upset...”

 

 

   He mumbles the last bit into the table itself, having come to a natural resting place with his face mashed into the grain of the wood and one eye closed, and Meera makes a displeased sound he can't track visually for any related expression since he's not going to risk trying to roll his other eye up far enough to actually look at her.

 

 

   “Bit of a leap on her part, though, given what she knows of you. It wasn't fair of her to take her worries out on you like that,” Meera decides, a wee bit huffy, like an angry nesting hen warning handsy beggars off her eggs,

 

 

   “I'm not making light of what she's been through, no one can say she hasn't reason to be distrustful, but she of _all_ people should know better than to think for a _minute_ you'd have done any such thing as take advantage of that poor girl, and Sansa's no business making assumptions and getting involved without really speaking to either of you. Surprise is no excuse.”

 

 

   Rickon just groans noncommittally, happy to leave it there, empty of the energy it requires to more fully address his sister's issues and disinterest in discretion at this hour.

 

 

   “That why you came 'round ours, then? Wanted some space?” Meera asks him kindly, and he mumbles an affirmative and chases it with a sullen,

 

 

   “Wanted t' see Bran. Thought he might... help, I s'pose... Stupid of me.”

 

 

   “Yes, well - I'll be having a chat with Bran about selfish decisions and supportive siblinghood later on, my lad, you mark me,” Meera promises stoutly, and then asks with interest,

 

 

“Have you told Sansa you defended her honour about town, at least?”

 

 

   “No,” Rickon tells her, hollow with disappointment,

 

 

   “'Ve not spoken to her since I left f' here. Don't really fancy it, 'specially when she's the one been telling everyone about Shireen and I, ruining ev'rything...”

 

 

   “Shame - she'd like to hear about that, I'm sure. Maybe teach her a few things she already ought know about her nicest little brother,” Meera remarks,

 

 

   “Off besmirching those as feel a need to do the same to her good name as well as all manner of public spaces that deserve better than that filth.”

 

 

   Rickon cracks a watery smile at that, his toes curling in his socks at having his little outburst of last night so thoroughly endorsed by what is arguably the moral bastion of if not his entire family, quite yet, then certainly this household.

 

 

   “Oh, _bollocks_ \- my boots - ” he realises, raising his head from the table to look in the direction of the hallway as if that'll make a blind bit of difference to how utterly manky he knows they have to be after last night's sticky floors and vomit puddles and being within a twenty mile radius of Theon _bloody bastard_ Greyjoy -

 

 

   “Took care of 'em,” Meera tells him pleasantly, setting a fresh mug of builder's in front of him,

 

 

   “They were that crusty and rank, I've disinfected them. Bran and Jojen's too - I don't know where you lot were last night but you're not to go back there, it's disgusting,” she shudders and then smiles at him kindly and pats his hand, adding,

 

 

   “Yours 're in the airing cupboard stuffed full of Glade packets, should be fine for when you need them in a bit.”

 

 

   “ _Meera_ ,” he manages weakly, gaping at her in dumbfounded admiration and floundering for the right compliment to truly express what a gem she is, sudden inspiration striking him and making him say,

 

 

   “You are the _Jaffa Cake_ of women, d'you know that?”

 

 

   “Awww,” she bubbles, giving his shoulder a little pet as she passes to get the bacon distributed,

 

 

   “That's lovely. Ta' for that!”

 

 

   “Seriously,” he says, fixing still-bleary eyes on his new mug of tea and reflecting idly that maybe Jojen and Bran were right about that being the sort of thing she'd like to hear and that they owe him the use of it as restitution for last night's palaver,

 

 

   “You're an absolute star, thank you so much for all this, I know it's an effort.”

 

 

   “No,” she says patiently, returning to the table with a plate of bacon butties which she slides obligingly within reach of his trembling hands before sitting down opposite him,

 

 

   “What's an effort is managing those two beggars upstairs when they've got an idea in their heads,” and then she grabs one of them off the plate as he does the same, takes a large bite, philosophically chews for a moment, and then grimaces and adds,

 

 

   “Or one of those _sodding_ Groupons.”

 

 

   “Yeah...” Rickon mumbles into his butty, inhaling of its life-giving aroma deeply,

 

 

   “Yeah, there was a Groupon last night, and all...”

 

 

   “Thought as much. Tossers,” Meera remarks, her exasperation as minimal as her cheer is sunny which is just amazing given the time of day and how late she was up wrangling a bunch of daft lads back home and into bed. Rickon makes an appreciative noise into his breakfast. It's just as much for her as it is for the quality of the bacon butty, both of which are stellar.

 

 

   “Reminds me,” she says after swallowing,

 

 

   “Cover your ears my love,” she nods to encourage him, and Rickon obligingly stoppers his ears with his fists so she can screech the way of the door for Jojen and Bran to get the lead out and crack on or there'll be trouble.

 

 

   The noise is unsettling even with his ears jammed up, but when she's done shouting she gestures with her butty for him to relax, and smiles benevolently.

 

 

   “Sorry about that, pet, I want them up before we're gone,” she apologises, and Rickon shakes his head a bit.

 

 

   “Makes sense,” he agrees, getting no further as Bran chooses this moment to make his appearance, swathed in his own duvet and trailed by Summer, Jojen apparently propping him up from within the cocoon of down and cotton judging by the odd bulges and hobbling gait of all involved.

 

 

   “Oh, lovely - brekkers and tea,” Bran moans, dishevelled and likely half-naked under his duvet, making a lunge for the table and revealing bits of Jojen and his own bits as the duvet detaches, proving Rickon's theory.

 

 

“Bacon!” Jojen yelps, stabilising Bran out of reflex more than anything as Bran pours himself into the chair beside Meera's and flops his head on to her shoulder pathetically as Jojen slides into the last remaining chair and paws at the table awkwardly like he was expecting a place to be set there and can't quite reconcile its absence with his plans.

 

 

   “Meera love, you're the Jaffa Cake of women - gi' us a butty,” Bran wheedles winningly, and Meera wrinkles her nose at him and scoffs.

 

 

   “Cadging lines off your brother isn't going to get you back in my good books, Bran Stark,” she lets him know, and Bran immediately turns narrowed eyes on Rickon and hisses,

 

 

   “ _You thieving bastard_ , you _stole_ that from _us_! Admit it!”

 

 

   Rickon shrugs, keeps his head down, and chews steadily through a particularly juicy mouthful of bacon, letting himself enjoy how disappointed Meera looks in Bran out of the corner of his eye.

 

 

   “You leave Rickon alone; he's a good lad,” Meera decrees, fixing Bran and Jojen with a beady eye and prodding,

 

 

   “Unlike some,” and Rickon sees it land as Bran winces and Jojen flinches a bit, and then Meera goes on,

 

 

   “You two never should have made him take you out - I don't know _what_ you were thinking, it was naught but selfishness! Those ruddy Groupons giving you ideas again, I've _told_ you to get rid of that app, but will you listen? Will you buggery!”

 

 

   Bran and Jojen both slump further and further into their seats as she carries on with a vengeance, but she's nowhere near done.

 

 

   “There's no tea for either of you but what you can make yourselves, and you'll get none of _these_ either - ” she gestures to the plate of steaming butties, declaring,

 

 

   “What Rickon and I can't finish, Summer's getting. You two can bloody well sort your own breakfast; there's Weetabix in the cupboard!”

 

 

   Summer settles on to Rickon's feet under the table, warm and solid, panting up at Meera since she's obviously talking about him, and Rickon buries his face in his mug and sips tea over the sound of Bran's horrified, hurt,

 

 

   “ _Meera! **Weetabix!**_ ”

 

 

   “ _Yes_ , damn you, _cold cereal_ , because you've not deserved anything else and neither one of you is allowed to use the stove while I'm gone - don't you give me those bloody sad eyes, Bran, you _touch_ that stove and I'll know about it - probably burn the sodding house down and all, rate you're going - you couldn't even be bothered to get dressed to come down even though I bloody told you to; the _cheek_ of you both, thinking anyone here's in any mood to see _any_ of your cheeks after your little jaunt,” she snaps, shaking Bran's clinging off and rising in a warlike fashion, swiping the butty plate away from Jojen's mad grab at it, and holding it aloft out of their weak clutches, asking,

 

 

   “Rickon, few for the road? We'd best be off.”

 

 

   “Yes please,” Rickon replies hastily, gulping down the rest of his tea and dragging his feet out from under Summer's bulk, getting up just in time to receive the warm little package of butties Meera's somehow already wrapped in foil while she thrusts the rest under the table at Summer with a few choice phrases to remind the dog to keep Bran out of trouble, and then she straightens and orders him,

 

 

   “Into the hall with ye, jacket's on the peg, I'll bring out your boots,” and he scurries to do her bidding feeling not unlike a child being chivvied into position for the intricate Dance Of The Daily School-Run, hearing the violent smacking kisses she treats Bran and Jojen's upturned blank faces to before she makes her way to fetch Rickon's boots for him, passing the kitchen with final dark instructions for her two pet plonkers to behave themselves while she's out because she'll only be an hour, tops, and then before he knows what's what she's bundled him into her car and they're off down the road, her GPS merrily chiming away directions as the butties resting on Rickon's stomach on top of his folded jacket warm his bruised cockles and he realises she's gone so far as to pop sunnies on his face to protect him from the evils of early morning light in a moment of his inattention.

 

 

   Probably while he was navigating his safety belt and scoffing another butty straight out of the foil package - hunger piqued by bacon and tea and the sight of his brother getting what was so deservedly coming to him and reminding Rickon he didn't really eat anything yesterday at all - which was admittedly an ambitious attempt at multitasking in his current state which slowed him down considerably, but which Meera thankfully has not seen fit to criticise him for even in her present mood.

 

 

   “D'you know you're amazing?” Rickon tells her out of sheer relief that even after all his poor choices and on this most horrible of days where he can't help but feel he's steering directly for his own destruction at the tiny, competent hands of the only person he believes he's ever really fancied properly, now he thinks on it, someone who knows what they're about is here with him for the parts he knows he'd botch if he were on his tod, like driving himself to Shireen's, and feeding himself so he doesn't pass out from lack of sustenance before the fact instead of from misery, as is only proper once all this is over, and Meera just takes a left turn down a by-road and reaches over to pat his hand in a motherly fashion Rickon feels he's overdue for.

 

 

   “I know,” she says, coming away with a butty in her hand, foil package magically undisturbed in his lap, leaving him to gaze at her in abject awe as she adjusts her rear view mirror, tears a strip of bacon off with immaculate teeth, and adds sweetly,

 

 

   “We'll be there in half an hour - have another butty and a twenty minute nap, pet. You look wretched.”

 

 

   There can be no arguing with this superwoman, or if there can, Rickon is not the man for the job even on his best day, and today is not that.

 

 

   He falls asleep seven minutes later having snaffled the last butty like a starving animal, and remains blessedly dead to the world even when Meera leans over to wipe his face clean of the evidence at an intersection with a tongue-dabbed tissue.

 

 

   Watched over by this saint, even his hangover and impending doom combined can't disturb the sweetness of his dreams, wherein a girl in a white dress takes off her sandal to rub his tummy gently with loving toes.

 

 

   In his sleep, Rickon hugs his butty-warmed jacket closer, and Meera smiles at the sight as she puts two fingers up coolly at a Volvo that won't give way, and continues on her sacred mission to deliver the little twat in her passenger seat to his destiny.

 

 

   -

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To reiterate the new rule, the purpose of which is to try and protect my frail health, no updates of anything will be posted until the latest updates of all current works have at least three comments. We'll see if that helps my tendency towards getting over-excited and writing myself into exhaustion.


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

   The car comes to a gentle stop after a brief bumpy stretch, and when Meera jogs his arm a bit to wake him up, the first thing that greets Rickon's bleary gaze is a massive sign attached to a fairly large gate blocking what looks like one of those two-mile driveways through woodland up to some bloody pile or other, which in bold, decisive lettering says ' **PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING**.'

 

 

   It doesn't exactly fill him with confidence.

 

 

   Nor does the sight of his own face when he pushes his sunnies up his forehead so he can scrub his sleeve over his eyes when he leans over to read the sign and catches a glimpse of how wrecked he looks in the side mirror.

 

 

   _Get you, you dissolute bastard_ , his unfocused eyes and grey pallor seem to scream.

 

 

   “Bloody hell,” he mumbles, squinting in hopes it's just a bad angle and the unforgiving glare of the sun making him look like he's been recently dug up.

 

 

   No such luck.

 

 

   The visor's mirror just confirms the worst when he unwisely flips it down to check, and staring up at his reflection is an unpleasant revelation.

 

 

_Yeah, get **you** \- some bloody **'knight in shining leathers'** you are, and all - save her having to explain why she's gone off you, this will, and save you blaming Sansa for blowing the lid off it; you look every inch the jobless, feckless wankstain you really are. Couldn't even keep off the piss after you made plans to see her, could you? Not even after last time, because that went so bloody well, didn't it? **Twunt.**_

 

 

   “Aw, _fuck_...” he groans, hiding behind his sunnies again and cringing into his hoodie, so the expulsion comes out more like whingeing which doesn't improve matters, and Meera glances up from doing something to the sat-nav and frowns at him.

 

 

   “What're you making that noise for? Have another pill if you need one, they're in the glovie,” she says, turning her attention back to the sat-nav and murmuring,

 

 

   “Should be right down this drive, here - ” and then she pipes up again to ask,

 

 

   “D'you want to walk it so you can wake up a bit and get some air through you, or do you need delivering right to the door?”

 

 

   The casual way she's suggesting he just waltz up and trespass on Shireen's _life_ like he has a right to it pokes a hole in something sensitive he was trying not to handle at all, and what comes out of it is as unsightly and bitter as he is himself.

 

 

   “I've no bloody business being out at all - look at the state of me!” he hisses, the guilt at taking this sort of unwarranted tone with her instant and crippling but still not strong enough to keep it in, twisting around in his seat to face her, and she blinks calmly, and delivers her assessment.

 

 

   “Seen worse,” she tells him simply, apparently blind to both his mounting panic and how he'd be a very convincing extra on the set of any half-decent zombie film, coolly instructing him to;

 

 

   “Now stop faffing about - you made an appointment t' see this girl, and you're bloody keeping to it even if you are having a fit of the vanities, so pack in the blether and get yourself sorted.”

 

 

   “I can't though, can I? I'm _bollocksed_ \- I never should have gone out, I never should have said I'd be here at _ten_ \- this whole thing's a bad job - ” he babbles, curled up in his jacket like that'll hide the fact that his t-shirt (however comfy) isn't fit for purpose, and desperate to disappear, suddenly and unexpectedly wretched over the entire business in a hugely unwelcome regression to his original mindset of immediately after the Great Hospital Debacle,

 

 

   “Why'd you even let me out of the _house_ like this, I'll only cock it up even worse, it'll be just like last time - ”

 

 

   “Oi!” she interrupts, a fair whack of spirit behind it, but not so much that it overrides the abject horror of his realisation -

 

 

   “It'll be _just like_ , even - fucking _hell_ , Meera, I shouldn't be anywhere _near_ her - _every time_ I've seen her I've been jiggered as or the wrong side of wankered, or _both_ , and it's gone tits-up for it - I can't even keep it together when I _know_ I'm s'posed to be seeing her, what the hell's _wrong_ with me?”

 

 

   “ ** _Oi_** \- Rickon - pack it _in_ ,” Meera shouts, stern and annoyed and with a strategic pinch of his cheek to give him a bit of a shock, and just like when he was five and going off on one, it works a treat and shuts him up so she can put him to rights.

 

 

   Just like when he was five, he's a snotty, minging mess though, and it just doesn't have a hidden cute factor when you're the age he is now, turns out, which only makes him feel worse for knowing he's not managing this any better and compounds his certainty that Shireen would be miles better off without him.

 

 

   Meera doesn't seem to share this conviction.

 

 

   “Listen up, you daft wazzock,” she lays out firmly, beady eyes fixed staunchly on his,

 

 

   “If you really have been some shade of shattered or shite-faced _or both_ every time you've had to do with her - your poor judgment or bad coincidence or whatever _aside_ \- don't you reckon if she _were_ put off by that, she'd have told you to get stuffed by now?”

 

 

   “Well, yeah - but not if Sansa's right though,” he argues,

 

 

   “Not if she really hasn't got her head on straight yet and this is all just 'cause she's reacting to everything that's happened!”

 

 

   “So let her react!” Meera counters sharply, gesturing at him with an impatient hand,

 

 

   “If that's what she feels a need for and you're up for it, why shouldn't she _react_? Maybe that's how she's coping - who're you and Sansa to judge her for that? She could do worse in choosing someone for it, I tell you that much - she's done better'n Sansa did there, for a start!”

 

 

   “Wouldn't take much to do better'n _that_ though, would it,” Rickon snaps back,

 

 

   “And you don't get it - you don't _know_ her, Meera, she could do better than me any day of the week if she tried, she's a proper, _proper_ classy lass, and I never even bothered to go to uni - I don't even have a _job!_ ”

 

 

   “Don't need one to live on, though, do you, wi' your money,” Meera points out bluntly,

 

 

   “And as I recall, ye've spent all your time since coming back from your trip taking care of Sansa and volunteering for charity - now if you were a right waster, that's hardly what you'd be doing with your life, is it?”

 

 

   Biting his tongue for lack of a come-back to that one, he has to let her go on, and she does, with gusto and rolling her eyes expansively.

 

 

   “Fuck's sake, you mardy Stark sods and your _bollocking_ complexes, ye'll be the death of me - ” she exclaims, then stabs him in the chest hard with her finger just in case she didn't have his undivided attention, and says very seriously,

 

 

   “I've been over this with Bran, ages ago when he was having fits about his injury and Jojen and all the rest of it, and now it's your turn, so _mind_ ; whatever bloody guilt issues you have about not being _good enough_ for other people are complete and utter _tripe_ , and you've no sodding right to go about the place like you know how everyone else feels or acting like you know best for them what they should want and it isn't you, because that's not _noble_ , my lad, it's just _bollocks_.”

 

 

   He hasn't so much as inhaled to protest before she's shut him down, shouting in exasperation,

 

 

   “ _It's just bollocks!_ ” and then glares at him warningly when he subsides into sullen slouching off both the back of her raised voice skewering his head and what she's getting at, demanding,

 

 

   “D'you think Ygritte hasn't had this chat wi' Jon and told him he's a self-righteous prick for trying to make her choices for her just because _he's_ got a stick up his arse about not being able to give her what he _thinks_ she deserves?”

 

 

   She doesn't even give him a chance to shrug or mumble either way, not that he was planning to try, immediately assuring him,

 

 

   “Because I _promise_ you, she has, and Jon might not have _liked_ it, but if she hadn't told him where to stick his supposedly _noble_ high-minded _twaddle_ , they'd both be single and miserable now, and instead, they're off climbing mountains together and having a lovely time sorting through life, and the same's true of Bran and Jojen and I, just minus the mountains - d'you _really_ think if I'd let him get away with the same number back then that your brother'd be happy now? D'you reckon he'd have a proper home and people with it who love him and are happy to take care of him when he needs the help _because_ they love him?”

 

 

   “ _Bran_ went to uni,” Rickon mutters rebelliously, daring to glance up at Meera's thunderous expression for all of two seconds before he ducks his head again and winces at the volume of it when she shouts,

 

 

   “ ** _I don't give a toss!_** ”

 

 

   It rings in his ears for a moment as she seems to let it sink in and gathers herself, and then in more controlled tones, she repeats,

 

 

   “ _I don't give a toss_ , Rickon. All it did was give him back some of his confidence - I'd have loved him even if he'd never gone. Jojen would have, too, even if it has brought them closer, doing the same course - it's not _about_ jobs, or degrees, or bloody _deserving_ bugger-all,” she tells him, gentle and firm,

 

 

   “What's important is doing right by yourself as best you can, and by the people around you, and you can't do either if you're putting yourself down wi' one hand and fending everyone worth a mention off with t'other because you're fretting that you're not good enough for them. D'you see?”

 

 

   He does at least shrug then, but that's all he's got, and she sighs. He can't even bring himself to look up at her, sure she's as disappointed with him as he feels -

 

 

   _\- can't even adequately state your case for why this is all going to end in tears or why it's for the best, fucking hell, Arya's right, you **are** the saddest case on record - _

Meera's hand on his, holding tight, is comforting and startling at the same time, enough to jolt him out of his funk and make him sit up straight and mind her properly, and she doesn't look annoyed with him, or disappointed, just a bit tired and a bit grieved and a lot more loving than he's earned.

 

 

   “There's nowt wrong with you, Rickon,” she says earnestly, eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiles, squeezing his fingers,

 

 

   “I don't know this girl, but I know you. You say you've spoken to her proper-like, and you were happy enough then that she's got herself sorted enough to know what she's about where you two were concerned, at least. All that's got you in a tizzy now's your own self-doubt, and this Sansa bother, and you can't be ruled by either if you're to do right by this girl, _or_ yourself.”

 

 

   He keeps his eyes on their joined hands for a long moment before swallowing and managing a raspy,

 

 

   “I s'pose...”

 

 

   “Yes you bloody well do,” Meera tells him firmly, but cheerily, shaking his hand a bit and keeping hold of it as she says,

 

 

“And I want you to remember what you told me - _I_ might not know this girl, but you do, and you _didn't_ before all this occurred, _and neither did Sansa_. For all either of you two know, she might have a totally different personality now than she did before the horrors, or just a different outlook on life, and even if she hasn't, it doesn't change her right to mourn her old life in the manner of her choosing or decide for herself what she is or isn't ready for now she's on the mend,” and then the cheer fades from her voice to be replaced by seriousness as she leans in and adds,

 

 

   “Protecting and supporting someone who's been through trauma is not the same thing as trying to take over their life or make their choices for them, _as well you know_ ; don't let personal problems or someone _else's_ issues with _their_ recovery convince you different.”

 

 

   “I know,” he agonises, finally meeting her gaze and sitting up properly so he can inject some vigour into,

 

 

   “I _do_ know that - it's what I told Sansa when she went off about it after seeing us - that's why I told her she should just talk to Shireen personally instead of getting on _my_ wick for it, but all that stuff about taking advantage of Shireen got in my head, and bloody _Theon_ didn't help the way _he_ went on like that's _exactly_ what I'd done and I _meant_ to, because I never and that's _not_ how it happened, and I just...”

 

 

   He cuts himself off unhappily and slumps back down, slamming his cheek into the head rest and spitting out rather more aggressively than he planned to,

 

 

   “I just really, _really_ like her, and I wanted - I _actually_ wanted to give it a proper chance - and now they've wrecked it and it's never going to come right...”

 

 

   “Don't you pay _them_ any mind, pet - honestly, all this ruddy fuss just because a lovely lass went 'round yours of her own accord in broad daylight and the two of you saw fit for you to give her one after you'd had a bit of a sensible chat about how she's keeping!” Meera shakes her head in exasperation,

 

 

   “What's the world come to if we can't leave well enough alone when there's naught more to it than that?”

 

 

   “Well, I mean, more than _one_ \- put in a proper effort, you know,” he reveals in a grudging mumble like the clot he apparently is, and she just smiles at him warmly.

 

 

   “I never doubted it,” she assures him confidently, letting go of him and patting his arm before retracting her hand and putting it back on the dash, looking at him expectantly as she prods,

 

 

   “But you've got fifteen minutes to get yourself to this appointment of yours, and whether you want driving the rest of the way or you want to walk it, you've still got to get out and open that gate.”

 

 

   He glances at said gate and feels exhausted just thinking about leaving the bloody car, let alone finding and then having all this out with Shireen, but at the same time he'd rather be climbing some daft mountain with Jon if it meant he could put off what he's been stupid enough to set himself up for here.

 

 

   “It's going to go to shite,” he mutters, and Meera makes a sharp sound and says in tones that brook no argument,

 

 

   “You don't know until you've done it.”

 

 

   “I don't even know why she'd be interested in me - I'm dull as old socks, daft as a brush, and - ”

 

 

   “And you're a lanky streak of piss wi' no filter who's not to my sort of taste at all,” Meera interrupts dryly before he can really get into the master list of what makes him an unsuitable prospect for a lovely girl like Shireen,

 

 

   “But you're a sound lad with a nice arse, and that's rare enough these days, so even if your lass _is_ overlooking some things that might not be exactly to _her_ taste for reasons of her own, I can't see any reason why the two of you couldn't make a go of it provided you're both on the same page about what that go needs to look like.”

 

 

   “Can't keep expecting her to overlook everything though, can I?” he asks moodily, and Meera quirks a wry smile at him.

 

 

   “Oh, you'd be surprised what women are prepared to overlook under the right circumstances,” she says sagely, and then shrugs and adds,

 

 

   “Even if it is just a case of her having gone cock-blind because she hasn't had a good shag in a while, and sometimes that's what you need when you're having a crisis of confidence, that's still a perfectly legitimate reason to get involved with someone even if it doesn't last, and there's nowt wrong or unnatural about that.”

 

 

   “Brilliant, thanks, that makes me feel so much better,” Rickon mumbles disconsolately, burrowing into his hoodie and hugging his jacket to his chest, and Meera sighs loudly and slaps him on the arm, commanding,

 

 

   “Give over!” and when he looks up at her darkly and ready to protest, she just gives him a shove and insists,

 

 

   “You thought she was worth taking a punt on even though you've not seen her at her best yet, so there's no excuse for you not thinking she's up to feeling the same way about you even if she hasn't seen you at _yours_ yet, and honestly, Rickon, if you two have as much in common as you say and everything really _was_ as good as you say on both sides before Sansa got involved, _you both need to just move past that_ , because nothing matters in this except how the two of _you_ feel - not anyone else's feelings or judgment or notions or bugger-all, _trust me_ , **_I_** know!”

 

 

   Rickon looks at her determined expression for a long moment, and finally tells her quietly,

 

 

   “You know, I've never judged you or Jojen or Bran for doing things the way you have. I'm just glad you're all happy.”

 

 

   Her smile is beatific.

 

 

   “I know that, lovey, and we appreciate it,” she coos, rubbing his arm affectionately and giving him just enough time to lean into the gesture in kind before she shoves him hard again and orders cheerily,

 

 

   “Now sod off out of my car, and get yourself down t' see your lass, and don't come home until you two've worked the thing so you can be happy too, and never _bloody_ mind Sansa or Theon or anyone else - you tell your Shireen and all; anyone gives you two any more grief about any of this, you send them my way for a leathering!”

 

 

   She actually shoves him out of the car mostly before he's even really got the door open, and then snatches the door shut on him before he can turn back and change his mind, rolling down the window and leaning over to wink and tell him to,

 

 

   “Follow the gravel path, my lad, and it'll be right in the end. Give us a call if you need a lift, or anything!”

 

 

   And then she happily abandons him in front of the ominous gate with a tootle of her horn and a turn of speed that isn't totally appropriate for the cracked and ancient tarmac of the road surface, where he's no choice but to put on his jacket, re-shield his eyes, and do as he's told.

 

 

   A quick grope in his pockets reveals he doesn't even have headphones on him for a quick listen to something encouraging as he bypasses the gate and its instructions and makes his way down the sparsely-gravelled path which Meera's sat-nav has promised leads eventually to the Seaworth residence and, hopefully, Shireen.

 

 

   All that means though is that he only has a mild heart attack as opposed to a full coronary when a stocky lad in a flat cap melts out of the roadside shrubbery with a dour and suspicious expression and hails him with a gruff,

 

 

   “What the fuck're you doin' 'ere?”

 

 

   Already armed for the likelihood of meeting people who aren't Shireen as she's holed up in a house with people who have a multitude of sons, and having at least heard a slight rustling of bushes before this flank attack, Rickon recovers relatively quickly.

 

 

   “Er - morning - I'm Rickon Stark, I'm here t' see Shireen? She's expecting me,” he replies, as politely as he can manage, feeling a bit resentful of the unimpressed scrutiny this lad's treating him to and trying to think whether he recognises him at all from the park the other day.

 

 

   “You that biker bloke went t' see 'er at hospital?” the stocky lad demands, a dark cloud settling over his fairly unfriendly features, and Rickon nods wearily.

 

 

   “That'd be me, I reckon, yeah,” he confirms, accepting the possibility that in all likelihood his little visit to Shireen in hospital and the subsequent upset she suffered have been much discussed in the Seaworth household, and the related possibility that he's about to have his face kicked in by an angry brother-of-sorts who didn't get the chance the other day as Rickon's reasonably sure he wasn't there in the throng of very similarly-built models all very much along the same lines as Mr. Seaworth but all also a bit older than this chap, by Rickon's vague recollections.

 

 

   All this is supported in full when the lad glares daggers and reads out the charge:

 

 

   “Mum says you made Shireen cry.”

 

 

   It's not always a pleasant thing to be proven right in one's presumptions and this is one of the less pleasant of Rickon's to have been bang on the money, but Rickon can't fault Marya Seaworth for having been unimpressed with him on the day, and he can't fault this youngest of her brood Rickon's met so far (or at least, he presumes this one's one of the Seaworth sons, of which Shireen has told him there are a good many, not all of whom were present in the park but all of whom fit the general description of this one) for taking after her in that respect.

 

 

   At least if he is about to have his face kicked in, it'll be an excellent excuse for looking like death warmed over when he sees Shireen, he thinks wryly.

 

 

   “Fair play; I did and all. Didn't mean to do it, but I won't lie and say it never happened,” Rickon admits, trying to be fair about it, trying not to be angry that he's being confronted with this months and months after the fact when surely by now he's proved he's at least not trying to hurt Shireen on purpose even if he _was_ a thoughtless bastard to her at the hospital, because that's all in the past now and he's been forgiven - Shireen _forgave_ him and _surely_ her opinion's the one that matters here - and he does his best to keep his voice steady and neutral when he emphasises,

 

 

   “I said summat daft because I didn't think, and I apologised, and we're fine now.”

 

 

   “Yeah, well,” the stocky lad says to that, like Rickon's honesty is sticking in his throat like a pasty that's been lying in a motorway services display a while too long for comfort or safety and he'd like to spit on Rickon's boots for luck before he twats him one,

 

 

   “ _They_ think you're alright. Shireen talked to 'em. _I_ reckon you're just another chancing pillock.”

 

 

   “ _Another_ one? Y' overstocked wi' those?” Rickon finds himself asking, slightly bewildered, because to his knowledge Shireen's not been seeing anyone since she left hospital, and he's fairly sure Sansa would have said something if she'd known of or observed anyone about the place who shouldn't be or didn't belong - Shireen certainly never mentioned anyone else being in the picture, suitable or no, so he's not quite sure why he's being referred to as _another_ chancing pillock, implying they've had a run on same.

 

 

   “We 'ave been - you're not the first bastard t' come sniffing 'round 'er over the years, hoping t' get something y' don't deserve a bit of, trying it on,” is the disheartening, scoffed response, and then the lad does hark and propel a hefty gob off to the side of the path like the very thought of whatever unworthies came before Rickon puts a bad taste in his mouth, glaring up at Rickon in a challenge and nodding at him, sneering,

 

 

   “Y' think you can walk in 'ere and get all cosy just because you helped save her life and now they all think you're some sort of bloody hero? There's nothing to you but that, and even if she can't see it right now, she will in the end when you go the same way of all the rest of 'em.”

 

 

   It's almost a relief to be confronted with an embodiment of his own insecurities about all this, he realises, facing up to the bolshie, unimpressed expression on this lad's face and how it neatly lances the boil Meera couldn't quite get to earlier in the car for all she did her best.

 

 

   “Listen, mate - ” he starts, and then quickly cuts across where he was almost definitely about to be bloody told that he is _not_ this lad's mate, which isn't unreasonable, agreeing,

 

 

   “You're not wrong, alright? I've only got the one thing going for me, and if it weren't for that, there's no chance Shireen would've given me a second look, but now that she has, I'm not about to cock it up if I can help it,” he says with exhausted honesty,

 

 

   “I know she's not been the luckiest, and I'm not here to add to her troubles, or mess her about. I know there's a lot of that going round, and I'm not interested in contributing to it. That's the best I can do for you.”

 

 

   “You don't understand though, do you - what it's like,” the lad challenges gruffly, actual pain behind the posturing,

 

 

   “I've known 'er all me life, she's like a sister to us all, and never did a thing t' deserve all the shite's come her way, and here's _you_ on the tail-end of another load of t' same worse than any as came before, lookin' as like t' cause her grief as any we've seen before, and all I can do is warn you off being a prick to her!”

 

 

   It's as raw as anything Rickon's ever felt with regard to being unable to protect his own sister, and it brings up a new level of empathising with what this is other than Rickon running the gauntlet towards the sober confrontation with Shireen he came here for, and that brings a new level of clarity forward which resonates deep in his chest and carries a solid, severe response with it.

 

 

   “I've no trouble following all that, but you're wrong there. I _do_ understand,” he says clearly, holding the lad's angry gaze steadily,

 

 

   “I've got two sisters of my own - the one who's mates with Shireen, Sansa her name is, her fiancée was a bad lot and a half. Knocked her about. Kept her from her mates, her family - had her dog put down, even,” the shocked way the lad blinks at him and the swift way it's chased by a look of utter disgust speaks well of him and gives Rickon faith in his character and his ability to catch what Rickon's getting at, so Rickon presses on seriously,

 

 

   “And believe me, he wasn't the only proper little bastard who's tried it on with her over time, but he's in the ground now, and my sister's doing alright for herself, moving on, and she's already warned me off messing Shireen about even though she knows me better than t' think I _need_ that warning, so yeah, I _do_ understand. I know what it's like, not being able to do any more than just _be_ there and wanting t' just make your sister's problems disappear so she can have the life she deserves, and I know I'm a tatty oik on borrowed time with Shireen because she can obviously do better'n me without question,” and at that the lad grunts a sound not unlike partly amused appreciation for Rickon's candour, but Rickon follows swiftly and sternly with,

 

 

   “ - but that should be _her_ choice, and until _she_ decides she's done with me, I'm here for her and bloody grateful with it, and I hope that's not going to be an issue because if it is, you need to see _her_ about it. Ultimately, _she's_ in charge of who she wants to spend time with, and even if you don't fancy the look of me much and I'll agree I'm no prize, I'm not a dog-murdering dickhead, and in terms of people who might actually get a little of what she's going through and understand how to respect that, she could do worse. I'll say that for myself at least.”

 

 

   There's a long, tense moment of silence between them as the lad mulls over Rickon's defence and prepares to give his verdict, and Rickon takes it stoically, awaiting his sentencing with dignity.

 

 

   “Right y'are,” chappy says finally, nodding brusquely,

 

 

   “Can't say fairer, can we? House's just down that way,” he points down the path, and Rickon understands when he's been dismissed, nods back, and says,

 

 

   “Thanks. Happy shooting.”

 

 

   Grinning toothily, this lad really does look very like Davos minus the absolutely excellent beard, but there's a steely glint to his eye that's all Marya Seaworth as he pats the shotgun he's got on the one arm and replies,

 

 

   “Cheers. Mind how you go.”

 

 

   Rickon doesn't look back as he continues on his way, but his back prickles and he knows he's still being watched, so he walks with as much purpose as he can manage without looking either harried or overly relaxed, and isn't too surprised when after only a few metres he hears,

 

 

   “Oi!” from behind, and turns to see the stocky lad still stood where he was, but he is surprised at the question,

 

 

   “Your sister's lad - th' one who did her wrong; you the one put him in the ground?”

 

 

   “Sadly, no,” Rickon has to disappoint and reveal,

 

 

   “Didn't get the chance; he got smashed and drowned in his own sick before he could get sent down after losing the court case.”

 

 

   “Shame,” the lad calls affably,

 

 

   “Your Sansa's a lovely girl. Best to her and Shireen when you see 'em.”

 

 

   “Right, will do,” Rickon calls back, and then moves on, a weight lifted from him but the feeling of being watched carrying on until he rounds a bend in the path and a grand old grey stone house comes into view.

 

 

   Appraising it with only vague interest, he can see it's what he'd expected - one of these big old places that probably used to be a largish farmhouse when it was originally built and has been gradually extended and done up over the years whenever the owners have had a few bob spare or felt like keeping up with architectural trends - lots of great whacking slabs of stone forming the main body of the thing and with a massive front door that's clearly a later Georgian-style addition that matches the left wing extension as an update to the Jacobean bones of the thing's start in life as a home of some distinction housing people of some wealth.

 

 

   One of the things Sansa never tires of are those programs about restoring old houses and buildings. She finds them soothing and Rickon likes to see people use old building techniques to make things that were falling apart beautiful and functional again, saving things that to most eyes would seem wrecked beyond salvation, which might be one of the reasons they appeal to Sansa so much, come to think, so they watch an awful lot of that sort of thing on evenings where he's on call and she wants to stay up with him.

 

 

   Certainly it looks like the Seaworths - all roughly twenty million of them, by Rickon's last estimate - have taken good care of this old place. Rickon's memories of his own childhood home, large and grand as it was, are of a distinctly more worn sort of place due to the constant traffic and antics of the Stark brood and their many hangers-on, and it's only in recent years his parents have made real efforts to breathe new life back into it, which seems to have been inspired by boredom more than anything now that they've got far fewer kids about and more time for DIY and so on.

 

 

   Still, it's possible the Seaworth lot just aren't as rough on the fixtures as the Starks, which could be the case. If Rickon had as formidable a mother as Mrs. Seaworth he might have thought twice about playing rugby in the dining room and hanging off the banisters from his boots as well.

 

 

   Speaking of whom and probably summoned by Rickon's semi-charitable musings, Marya herself pokes her head out of a downstairs window just right of the front door, looks him up and down with a squinting eye as her only concession to the morning sun, and hails him;

 

 

   “Oh, so you found us, did you? My Steffon point you in t' right direction?”

 

 

   “Morning Mrs. Seaworth,” Rickon replies, painfully polite because frankly he daren't be anything but and he knows exactly how awful he looks and can only hope clinging to courtesy will mitigate the slightly suspect and gutter-sourced vibe he's got going, and trying not to totter as he approaches, adding,

 

 

   “If he's the lad with the gun and the cap, then yes. Good of him to show me where to go.”

 

 

   It's only after a moment of letting that hang in the air between them that he realises just what he's said and sees by the slight rise of Marya Seaworth's eyebrows that she heard it too and is not displeased with her lad for having apparently read Rickon the riot act, but it passes unspoken between them that this was not unreasonable, and Rickon can only hope his little slip in referring to it like that doesn't leave her thinking he's bitter about having had to answer for himself, because he isn't really.

 

 

   He objects to people other than Shireen implying they have any say in what she does or that Shireen might not know _what_ she's doing, not least because Shireen's made it clear to him that _she_ objects to that in the strongest possible terms, which is why Sansa's outburst is grating on him even now, but the Seaworth method of intervening seems to be more along the lines of just making it known that they're looking out for Shireen's best interests and aren't going to be easily impressed by anything other than tangible, consistent evidence that Rickon has the right intentions, which makes sense.

 

 

   They don't know him, after all. Unlike Sansa, who should know better generally, all _they_ know of him is that he volunteers for charity, which is no guarantee of saintliness or even proof of having half-decent morals regarding any other area of life. Hell, for all the Seaworths know, he might be one of those screwed-up knob-heads who only volunteers for a charity to have something to lord over other people and feel smug and superior about. People like that exist in their droves. Rickon himself would be sceptical of anyone who suddenly took a marked interest in one of his sisters after meeting her off the back of some horrible event regardless of what charities they might support, and perhaps especially if it seemed like that was their sole public activity and the only thing they regularly left the house to do.

 

 

   He would probably forgive them scruffy leather jackets and boots and the odd t-shirt with strange logos on, since after all he knows that doesn't usually tell you anything at all about the person wearing them and sometimes is likelier to indicate good things than bad, but again he realises not everyone would do and that judgment on that front is more likely than not, and he can accept that readily enough.

 

 

   Marya Seaworth does not appear to care about that though, instead she nods, tells him,

 

 

   “That'll be 'im - after some rabbits,” and adds affably enough, with real sympathy,

 

 

   “How are you, pet? You look fairly done in - Shireen mentioned she'd asked you 'round, but we weren't expecting you until much later, what with being out all night as you are.”

 

 

   _Taking advantage of her thinking you look like crap because you've come off a shift **isn't** lying, and it's the only thing you **are** taking advantage of, just let it slide, just go with it - _

 

 

   “Fine, thanks - it ended up being a bit of a long night even though I wasn't on shift, actually - ”

 

 

_\- what are you doing, what are you **saying** \- _

 

 

   “ - my brother insisted on taking me out, that's why I'm not driving myself; his girlfriend dropped me off at the gate,” Rickon says, mindlessly honest and disregarding the siren in his brain ordering him to pull over, and feeling his spine lock into place and his muscles seize up as soon as he's shut himself up again, because the sympathy fades from Marya Seaworth's pleasant, motherly face like mist before the heartless sun, and her gaze becomes critical, like she can see right through his sunnies and his jacket and hoodie to the t-shirt he remains pointlessly self-conscious about because he's hidden it under everything else with moderate success and you can't even tell from the little triangle visible still what it looks like, right down to the lingering and epically sodding _stupidly_ self-inflicted hangover _and_ what he did to Theon last night, and it effectively erodes all the confidence in him having any business being here that Meera tried to make him believe in.

 

 

_Meera'll be **so** hacked off - she's probably not even home yet and you'll have to call her and ask her to pick you up because they've set the dogs on you, and for good reason - what the fuck were you **thinking?** This is the sort of shit Arya's talking about when she says you're a sad case - **this is why we can't have nice things** , because you're a fucking **tit** who won't **learn** -_

 

 

   “Well,” Marya says at length, as if she's decided against complaining about thumbs on the scale after he's been weighed up and served up and still didn't impress,

 

 

   “At least you're honest and you didn't drive yourself. Sensible.”

 

 

   Never has Rickon been so thoroughly damned with such faint praise before, and it's all he can do not to flinch at it, or hang his head and just give it all up as a lost cause, because if her lad's annoyed that she supposedly thinks Rickon is alright, and _this_ is still all that amounts to...

 

 

   **_You're bollocksed._**

 

 

   “We've not seen Shireen at the house yet this morning,” Marya reveals in the tones of one who is moving the conversation briskly along because her conversing partner isn't up to it and she doesn't have time for dithering even as he fumbles for a way to redeem himself and claw his way back into the periphery of her approval now that he has, exactly as expected, fouled things up so neatly,

 

 

   “When exactly was she expecting you?”

 

 

   “Ten,” Rickon replies blankly, trying to shake off the sense that he's hugely disappointing everyone in his life, himself included, and proving himself nothing but a tiresome burden,

 

 

   “We agreed ten when she rang me last night - I'm sorry, she's not here?” he has to ask, struggling to wrap his head around the seemingly casual remark that Shireen hasn't been seen here, _where she specifically told Rickon she was staying and asked him to meet her, **at any point yet today,**_ and fighting the accompanying sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that has nothing to do with last night's bad decisions and brings _both_ the caustic memory of Sansa's tales of how the hospital might have to repaint the lines on the floor leading to Shireen's room with how they'd been worn down by all the squaddies and sailors paying their respects _and_ a little hint of sick to the back of his throat, and he swallows both down hard and bites his tongue.

 

 

   He has no right to judge. He has no right to demand any knowledge of where Shireen might or might not be or might have been at any point in time. It's just weird that she definitely told him she'd be here, and she isn't, that's all. Maybe even a bit worrying, if it turns out Marya thought Shireen was about and she's not, so no one actually know where she is or why she isn't where she said she'd be. He's not upset. He just wants to make sure he hasn't totally misunderstood the agreement they had, and that Shireen's alright.

 

 

   “Not in the house, no,” Marya tells him easily,

 

 

   “Shireen always stays at the lodge when she's with us. It's just down the path, there,” she indicates with a wave of her arm, pointing further down the gravel path that sweeps past the house and away through some trees,

 

 

   “Used t' be the gate lodge, back before they put the new road in, when the main way up to the house was on t' other side. We kept her at the house for a spell when she'd just come back from hospital, just in case, so she'd be close if she needed anything, but she likes her own space and she felt ready to be on her own, nights, so back t' lodge it was,” she adds, with obvious soft pride for what this has meant for Shireen's recovery, and then with fond affection,

 

 

   “She usually walks up mornings to have breakfast with the rest of us, but I suppose she was still tired from yesterday, poor love.”

 

 

   The ringing echo of **_oh thank fuck_** knocking about inside his empty head can barely compete with the unkind but not untrue **_that's your fault though, she wouldn't have been so tired if it weren't for you, you selfish bastard_** , but he chooses to only give voice to the one.

 

 

   “She said so on the phone when we spoke,” Rickon confirms, probably coming off a bit eager as he's pushing through the relief of being told that Shireen is not only safe and well but close at hand and that he hasn't misunderstood her directions and that there's no reason _whatsoever_ to think she's been anywhere but snugly sequestered in this lodge of theirs since last night, which is probably where she called him from, even, and it loosens his tongue and leads to babbling,

 

 

   “I tried texting after she left mine, t' see if she was alright, but she didn't answer, and when she rang later on she said she'd been asleep since she got back because she was tired, which makes sense after the day she had - and I know ten's probably a bit early for her after that and it was daft to suggest it, but she said it'd be fine, so here I am - I was just worried when you said she wasn't here just now, because she just told me to come up to the house, she never mentioned a lodge...”

 

 

   _You're not safe to be out, you daft tosser_ , his brain sneers as he trails off, fingers sweating nervously where they're curled into his pockets.

 

 

   Marya Seaworth on the other hand, appears to be viewing him in a new and altogether more flattering light, which surprises him, as the sun's only getting brighter and his back's only getting stickier as a result, which can't mean he's getting anything other than the thin end of the wedge and looking gradually less palatable.

 

 

   “Well it's just down the way,” she repeats, gesturing again, sounding far more amicable and accommodating now than she did only seconds ago, for reasons unfathomable to him when he feels he's done nothing but continue to put his foot very firmly in it and otherwise show himself up as an utter eejit of proportions, her tone bordering on friendly and perhaps even a little clucking when she goes on,

 

 

   “And if you do need a lift home again later on, you just have Shireen let my Davos know and he'll run you back, no trouble.”

 

 

   “... thanks, Mrs. Seaworth,” he manages, stunned by this turn of mood and feeling if possible even more awkward now he appears to have somehow magically ingratiated himself by being as inelegant a twat as possible and passed whatever test she felt he needed passing, and she beams at him not unlike Meera did earlier before she heaved him out of her car and abandoned him.

 

 

   “You're welcome, pet - off you go now, don't keep her waiting,” she shoos him with her free hand, warm and encouraging,

 

 

   “Give her our love, will you?”

 

 

   “'Course - yeah - I mean,” he clears his throat, utterly at sea now,

 

 

   “Thanks, I will - er, thanks.”

 

 

   Marya Seaworth's smiling face disappears back inside the house along with her arm closing the window, and the last he sees of it is a brief wave of a hand urging him on past the house, and then it too is gone and he's left alone with his staggering lack of conviction in his own place not just in the universe but in this sodding _driveway_ , the pound of his headache failing to recede behind his sunnies, and a faint sense of having somehow entered an _alternate_ universe where being an absolute effing _twat_ with bugger-all social grace is exactly the way to endear oneself to others.

 

 

   Either he's doing far better at all this than he thinks he is, or everyone's choosing to overlook how badly he's managing because he at least isn't as shite as some of the others who have apparently been in the running for a bit of Shireen's time and attention over the years.

 

 

   It's an incredibly depressing thought, but through it all, he thinks what's got to matter is what _Shireen_ thinks. _That's_ why he's here. It's what he told Sansa, and Bran, and Jojen, and Meera, and Marya Seaworth's Steffon, and that good lady herself, and it's what he's here to tell Shireen too - he can't very well use it on everyone else as the perfect argument if he doesn't credit it to himself.

 

 

   Bugger _everyone_ else - she asked him here, so he's here.

 

 

   Or will be soon enough, he decides finally, getting a grip on his thoughts and setting a fresh course past the house and towards his new destination, boots crunching gravel greedily under his feet, sound and movement jarring.

 

 

   The cover of the trees swallowing him up is cooling and pleasant once he's passed the main building, but it doesn't last. Nor does his longing for something other than the harshness of gravel being disturbed and birds starting barneys to jam up his ears with and drown out yesterday's ghosts, because gravel gives way to earth and grass and the trees to hedge and open sky punctuated by a neat grey roof and the sound of birds arguing to the faint lilting tones of a classic love song's perfect opening.

 

 

   It's the first thing Rickon's heard all day that hasn't hurt somehow, and that perfectly sums up everything Shireen already stands for to him, like an echo of all the unreal contentment from yesterday morning's equally early start, where just being together was worth all the exhaustion of everything - _of being **alive**_ \- and just like the sound and the chords building, Rickon feels like he's getting stronger as he takes their example and what they're evoking to heart, and just carries on one step at a time.

 

 

   -

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone - as usual due to health concerns, nothing gets any updates unless the most recently updated chapters of everything have a minimum of 3 reviews. So far this system is working reasonably well, so it remains in place!
> 
> On an unrelated note, there is going to be another Rickeen Shipweek, once again spearheaded by the lovely Frozensnares! The necessary information as well as a survey so you can all vote on what you'd like to see in terms of categories and prompts for the event can be found here:
> 
>  
> 
> [Rickeen Shipweek Info!](https://frozensnares.tumblr.com/post/162129363966/rickeen-shipweek-2017-survey)
> 
>  
> 
> As this work is actually a sequel or follow-on to Blood Runner which debuted and was written for the last Rickeen Shipweek, I am understandably very excited about this new Shipweek, and I hope you all are too and will help us with a good turn-out for this year's as well, and remember - even if you're not a writer you can support and participate in events like this by creating other content like artwork or fanmixes if that's more your thing, and if you do nothing else, commenting on everything you read and look at and enjoy is incredibly important so that all those of us creating content and events like this know it's being enjoyed and are encouraged to keep contributing to this fandom and this rarepair!
> 
> Without response and enthusiasm, all this would be impossible to sustain, so in advance, thank you for your support!


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

   It's an insultingly sunny day already, so it should seem out of place for this sort of soft rock to be wafting from some hidden speaker somewhere beyond the late-addition terrace doors to the side of the little grey stone Gothic Revival lodge nestled in amongst the trees at the end of the path, but to Rickon's mind Shireen was made for a soundtrack like this, so when he passes the rest of the slightly sheltering hedge and she sways into view inside on bare feet in little black shorts and a Def Leppard t-shirt that matches the song playing, it doesn't matter that the lyrics are desperate to know if she's alone tonight even though it's barely ten in the morning, because all that leg on display _does_ make him feel a mite hysterical.

 

 

   He's not awake or recovered or bloody hydrated enough to handle it sensibly though, despite Meera's best efforts -

 

 

   _and no one could have done more, really, what an absolute **star** she is_ he thinks with fond gratitude and the eternal hint of bemusement that an eejit like Bran could have made _that_ happen even on his _best_ day -

 

 

   - as is _abundantly_ clear from how previously slumbering parts of him perk up inconveniently and change their mind about giving the old morning salute a go, which is just an embarrassment since he's also not bloody _lucky_ enough for this to go anything _like_ well enough to warrant any participation on that front, weak pun unintended.

 

 

   He had a perfect morning with Shireen yesterday, before Sansa spoiled it; that's about what his karmic good will can stretch to in this lifetime, he reckons.

 

 

   Bugger him, and it _was_ only just yesterday, he realises mournfully, the resentment welling up again behind the uncomfortable constricting in his throat as he gets a proper eyeful of Shireen's ten AM routine while he can.

 

 

   Not like _that's_ likely to happen ever again. Not like _any_ of Rickon's ridiculous fancies from yesterday morning about exactly this kind of thing are _ever_ going to be anything more than that.

 

 

   This could actually be one of them though, he admits to himself - he was that far gone, just daydreaming about hopeful nebulous future scenarios where he'd get to come home to Shireen more or less just like this after being on a shift, or walking Shaggy while she has a lie-in...

 

 

   The only thing missing from it to convince him that this is just reality teasing him with something he'll never have is that if this _were_ one of his imaginings, she'd either already have - or in very short order have - a very large dog all over her who'd have been missing her just as much as Rickon has in just this short while apart.

 

 

   Rickon hasn't seen Shaggy since yesterday though, and unless Shireen ever comes 'round his just to visit Sansa in future, she never will again either, and he hadn't really wanted to face up to that before now because it's just bloody disheartening, but obviously, that's what it's all going to boil down to, and it knocks all the wind out of him and leaves him just sort of stood there like a leering knob, over-active sun prickling at the back of his neck and confirming he shouldn't have bothered with his jacket after all even if it is a comfort to hide in, and stinging his eyes where he can't help just looking at her while that's still an option.

 

 

   So obviously _that's_ when she notices him - lurking inefficiently amidst her terrace shrubberies like the moping plonker he is, having drifted into them away from the dwindling path once the hedge was no longer any barrier to wandering, too occupied with pining to realise it - and before he's had a chance to work up the right thing to say that won't startle or just confuse her, since he's forgotten most of his manners and vocabulary what with how bloody radiant she is even at this ungodly hour and how bloody miserable that makes him, she smiles like she doesn't even see that, and calls,

 

 

   “Rickon!” and that's _obviously_ what _he_ should have done, just call her name, he's _had_ **_practice_** , for fuck's sake, that's _how_ the practice came about, even weaker pun not intended -

 

 

   “Shireen,” he manages, derailing himself before he can go too far down that road, stumbling more or less blindly into range and feeling a stab of unkind hope at the fact she reaches for him at the point where indoor becomes outdoor and gets on her tippy-toes to brush a kiss over his cheek when he bends to let it land, although it's more like a lurch and he is fairly sure he looks a right lumbering arse next to her fairy princess grace, barely snatching his sunnies off and stashing them in his pocket in time, which despite avoiding an unfortunate collision somehow makes her look and feel a lot closer, compounding his agony.

 

 

   “I didn't hear you arrive,” she explains her surprise, stepping back to look up at him properly and clearly missing _his_ goggling surprise that she's this pleased to see him in the first place, asking lightly,

 

 

   “No bike today?”

 

 

   “No, er - Meera drove me, wasn't really time to take me home so I could ride down myself, and to be honest, I'm a bit too shattered for the road just now, so it's probably for the best,” he rambles a bit, trying not to hover or stare at her or let on how he'd gladly have her right here on these attractively herringboned tiles in sight of God and anyone else who might walk by, which is just a _ridiculous_ feature of male biology as far as he's concerned, because no one who couldn't be riding a bike in this state without risking life and limb and has this level of balance-buggering headache should have any business even thinking _fondly_ of potential shagging let alone be this worked up just because her general manner doesn't seem to indicate he's completely in the dog house.

 

 

   It's a fucking liberty that he's so exhausted and dried up he can barely moisten his eyes when he blinks, but he's _literally_ salivating over her bloody t-shirt.

 

 

   It isn't even _tight_ , he just has no in-built defence for Shireen in a band-related t-shirt she's obviously wearing and owns because she likes the band, which coincidentally he does, and all. So of course he addresses that, even as Shireen's asking,

 

 

   “Meera - that's your brother's girlfriend, isn't it? The one you thought I was when I called,” and leading him into the lounge which the terrace opens into, as though there's nothing wrong with him clomping all over her clean floor when he was just stood about outside practically on top of her flower beds and she apparently likes to walk about in here in bare feet, her hands light on his arm over his jacket like it hasn't occurred to her yet that he's utterly misplaced here.

 

 

   It's barely ten though, she's had a few long days, he reasons. Soon enough she'll notice he's a crusty bugger fit for nothing but polluting her life and boot him out.

 

 

_In her **own** time though - **don't call attention to it for fuck's sake,** don't say a **sodding** word about it - let her overlook as much as she possibly can, remember what Meera told you - !_

 

 

   “Yeah, Bran's girlfriend,” he confirms, sounding weirdly distant to his own ears and hoping that's just an internal issue and not coming across in reality,

 

 

   “She made sure I'd be here on time, sorry if I'm a bit early? I know I said ten, I wasn't really thinking, and I don't reckon it's even gone that yet, so if I'm in the way, or you still need to - I don't know, have a bite and change or summat? I can just wait, it's fine.”

 

 

   “Oh,” she says, blinking a bit like she's coming up short for an answer that covers all the blather he just laid on her, and then she shrugs and looks down at her feet, sounding a mite too casual when she goes on,

 

 

   “No, I've been up and about for a while, I didn't notice you were that early, to be honest - you haven't caught me in my PJs or anything, if that's a worry - I'm just like this because it's so warm today and I still haven't got much here that I can really wear, what with the - ” she gestures at her torso with flickering fingers, releasing his arm for the purpose and moving away slightly, almost giving the impression she's shrinking back into herself a little, finishing,

 

 

   “And I didn't think you'd mind. Would you... prefer I changed?”

 

 

   The question is definitely too casual, but behind it her eyes are guarded and confused, and _that's_ not on.

 

 

   “ _Shite_ , no - what the - _course_ I don't _mind_ \- ” Rickon tries for a convincing smile, nodding down at her t-shirt and winking against his better judgment,

 

 

   “Lovely lass in little shorts and a band tee? _Get_ in - course I don't _mind_ , love, that's worth the trip, and all, any day - ” and she looks a bit easier, her eyes go sparkly at least even if her pout's still a touch trembly, so he acknowledges,

 

 

   “And obviously you want to be comfy, I'd be a right knob if I took issue with that. 'Specially given what _I_ look like today!”

 

 

   Her face softens into a proper little smile of her own, just slightly relieved, and it makes him fret, makes him think about everything she's been put through and everything she's dealing with, and he realises,

 

 

   “S'pose you really haven't got much, though, what with the fire and that - ” _and thank you to Sansa_ for dropping _that_ bombshell so he could stew in all the horrors of it throughout yesterday in preparation for this grand and utterly thoughtless reveal of his new knowledge to a Shireen who looks rightly startled by it, as she should seeing as she never said a _word_ about it and he therefore has to have had it from a third party, but his brain's clearly on the blink - not that it was such a marvel to begin with - because he carries right on,

 

 

   “Have they sorted your insurance out yet so you can start getting everything settled?”

 

 

   “Um...” she utters blankly, eyes wide and expression overwhelmed and floored, and he could bloody _kick_ himself.

 

 

   “ ** _Bollocks_** \- Shireen, I'm _so_ sorry - I can't believe I'm going on at you about effing _insurance_ at ten in the morning and we've not even sat down yet, I'm such a berk - honestly, just tell me to get stuffed, I've no idea why I'd even go there like that, I'm useless,” he gushes, beyond miserable with how deeply he's put his foot in it and how nonplussed she looks just staring up at him like he's speaking in tongues -

 

 

   _Which you bloody well are, you fucking tosser, **fuck** me, **insurance**? What the fuck is **wrong** with you, you should be **studied** -_

 

 

   “Don't even listen to me, I've got no idea why I'm even still _talking_ , fucking **_hell_**...”

 

 

   Finally, he shuts himself up by clamping down on his lip with his teeth and then keeps them there until it hurts while she blinks a few times and shakes her head like she's clearing it.

 

 

   “No,” she says, and then a bit more decisively,

 

 

  “No, it's fine, I'm just - just _surprised_ , that's all. I didn't think you might ask after all that, and - I didn't know you knew about the fire.”

 

 

   “Sansa,” he supplies helplessly, shrugging like the awkward twat he is, and Shireen's face pinches in response.

 

 

   “Yes,” she replies neutrally, holding his doubtlessly shifty and somewhat constipated gaze,

 

 

   “Sansa.”

 

 

    ** _Oh, buggery bollocks..._**

 

 

   “We should probably talk about that,” he recognises, trying not to let on how his actual preference would be to never speak of it again and to just carry on like that never occurred and pick things up at the point just _before_ Sansa's unwelcome, untimely interference because honestly, Rickon feels the wasted potential of that whole set-up keenly even now and he'd dearly like another crack at seeing it to the ending he'd originally had in mind for it.

 

 

   It's a pointless, doomed nostalgic yearning for the halcyon hours of yesterday morning though, as is clear from Shireen's very sober nod and very measured,

 

 

   “Among other things,” but just as the full, ominous implication of that is closing in on him to make itself known, she directs him to a seat on the sofa which he takes inelegantly and then she interrupts his thoughts where they were sticking on this threat of there being things _other_ than Sansa for them to discuss by folding herself up neatly next to him, tucking her legs in to make herself a neat little parcel at just the right distance to have her own space, but not to be so far away that she can't touch him if she develops an urge in that direction.

 

 

   Not that it's _likely_ , unless he says something so stupid she's forced to give him a well-deserved smack.

 

 

   She hasn't yet, for all the truly bloody stupid things he's said to her so far, but he can't rule out the possibility he'll top previous triumphs in twattery, and if he's honest he's fairly sure she'd have at least _liked_ to take a swing at him that day in the hospital, so he's not out of the woods by any means.

 

 

   She makes an appealingly compact picture like this though, he muses, turned towards him and leaning against the back of the sofa, her head slightly tilted to rest on the cushion like she's still tired from...

 

 

   Well. Goings-on, and all that.

 

 

   Meanwhile he's a bit of an oddly gangly lump beside her, but he does his best to look awake and gather himself so he's not invading her space or sprawled out like a dumped corpse even if he's aware his posture's awful and she could probably tell he's had no more than five hours' sleep from a mile off, but Meera promised him he was fit to be seen even if he won't win any prizes, and it's some comfort to know he's at least _clean_.

 

 

   Other than his dusty, loamy boots though, but Shireen's already displayed a total lack of regard for him trailing them all over the place, so maybe that's not worth panicking about just yet.

 

 

   “I suppose it was a bit sudden,” Shireen starts off, very reasonably,

 

 

   “I can see why it threw Sansa for a loop and made her go off on one at you, so I'm glad we've sorted that out between us and she understands now, but actually, what I'm most bothered by after sleeping on it _isn't_ that she might be right that this is all a mite rushed - because it isn't _really_ , it's not like we 're moving in together or anything, we just had an unplanned adult sleepover,” she lays out, with a bit of irritated bitterness at the last since as she so rightly points out,

 

 

   “It's no more than might happen to _anyone_ on a night out, and we at least knew each other beforehand - not that we need to legitimise it with that sort of excuse to anyone because no one has any bloody right to judge either of us for it,” and he nods vigorously despite his headache to illustrate how much he agrees and hopes she recognises it for his heartfelt expression that they're of one mind completely on this front because he doesn't dare interrupt and say so when she sounds so annoyed at the very _idea_ that anyone might think to stick their oar in and try and get judgy about he and Shireen shagging when she's quite right and they did nothing wrong and aren't accountable to anyone but themselves over it anyway, but then she sighs and her frown goes from combative and irked to tired and frustrated, and he braces himself for the kicker.

 

 

   “What I _am_ worried about,” she tells him severely, eyes holding his gaze serious and steady,

 

 

   “Is this business of the interfering. I just _cannot_ be having with it,” she shakes her head in vague disgust, going on,

 

 

   “If you and I _were_ to be seeing each other, I just could not be dealing with your family getting involved all the time and feeling like they've a right to what's going on with us. I'm sorry, I know you're the youngest of a large family and I'm an only child so obviously I'm not used to having all those people about all the time, but actually, I've spent enough time _here_ to know you _can_ have a massive family and still be allowed to maintain your privacy, and you might argue the Seaworths aren't _my_ family so I can't use them as an example, but they have _always_ treated me as if I was one of their own, so I bloody _will_ use them as an example, and I'm not apologising for that.”

 

 

   “Nor should you,” Rickon agrees promptly, with her all the way, and the defiant expression on her face that came about so wonderfully while she was building up her head of steam becomes something taken aback as he continues,

 

 

   “You shouldn't apologise, for any of it, because you're not wrong - my family's a terrible bunch of nosy bastards.”

 

 

   “Oh, no - that's not what I meant,” Shireen cries unhappily, face contorting with the misery of being misunderstood,

 

 

   “I'm sure they're all lovely people!”

 

 

   “They're not,” Rickon tells her bluntly, moving closer and taking her hand to press reassuringly, informing her,

 

 

   “And I know what you meant, love - honestly, I'm not the least upset. I'm actually relieved you feel the same way I do, and you should, because indulging my family's habit of invasive nosy-parkering does _everyone_ more harm than good in the end. I truly hope you told Sansa exactly what you just told me, verbatim, that'd just make my whole day perfect to know.”

 

 

   “I wasn't rude to Sansa about it,” she says immediately, defensive and affronted, and Rickon smiles at her.

 

 

   “Of course you weren't. You're not like that,” he replies easily, totally certain, adding a little tartly,

 

 

   “Not even if she was being an interfering bloody rude little madam herself.”

 

 

   “She was a bit harsh, at first, but she was upset, I'm sure she meant well...” Shireen says dubiously, but the way she looks off to the side tells him everything he needs to know about how unpleasant Sansa's little hissy fit must have been even on the phone to Shireen, and it just makes him bite down on residual irritation about the whole bloody nonsense, and so he's a bit derisive when he agrees,

 

 

   “Yes, I'm sure they all mean well when they go sticking their noses in without taking a minute to think whether it's appropriate or even anything to do with them. I'm sure they're thinking of _nothing_ but my welfare and not at _all_ about their own issues in _any_ way,” but Shireen droops at that, and Rickon sighs and reins himself in and gets a fucking grip.

 

 

   _No need to pour the bile on **her** , bog-brain - it's not her fault, and she doesn't need to deal with **your** issues, and all!_

   “Why do you think I went on my trip?” he asks her softly, earnestly, revealing,

 

 

   “I had to get away from all their _bollocks_ \- literally, in Bran's case, he's practically a casual nudist and it gets a bit much - ” she huffs a tiny laugh and looks up at him again, and he smiles back encouragingly, adding,

 

 

   “I really don't blame you for drawing a line with this. I'm glad you have; they've all only ever had two settings where I'm concerned and that's the overbearing invasive micro-management approach, and the total ignoring of me as they're absorbed in all their own drama,” he explains hurriedly,

 

 

   “Of which there is a truly, ugly, _staggering_ amount. Usually I don't get dragged into it because none of them ever seem to remember I'm not six years old anymore unless they want something, but on the rare occasion I do anything even slightly interesting by their standards, I get to be flavour of the month and they all swoop in like vultures to pick clean the sorry carcass of my coffin-bound social life and put it back in the ground, and you're probably the most interesting thing that's _ever_ happened to me.”

 

 

   “Really?” she asks in a small voice, and he nods emphatically.

 

 

   “Normally, I run a mile to get out of spending time with other people, and here's me, asking to meet you at ten in the bleeding morning after a night out with Bran and Jojen, and I basically thought you wanted to see me to tell me I've got no chance of making a go of it with you properly, and I _still_ couldn't wait to see you because I just wanted to _see_ you.”

 

 

   She looks so stunned by the onslaught of all this information, just taking it in as she blinks at him silently, her hand limp in his as he carefully massages each of her delicate fingers under his thumb, he cracks a sheepish grin and adds quietly,

 

 

   “Shaggy's going to be so hacked off when I come home smelling like you but not bringing you back with me, and all. He's smitten.”

 

 

   That nets him a little laugh and a flicker of her fingers 'round his for the joke, even though it isn't really one because it's bloody true and Rickon can see some very betrayed doggy stares in his near future and a lot of demonstrative sighing and gazing at the door expectantly as his dog pines for Shireen and makes Rickon feel the weight of his failure to make her come back to them, so as Shireen looks away with slight embarrassment at the idea Rickon's dog could be in love with her, Rickon goes for it.

 

 

   “Honestly, truly,” he tells her with every scrap of sincerity in him,

 

 

  “My family's mental, and I don't blame you for not being interested in having them try to get their grubby mitts on anything you and I might get up to, because that lot can turn _anything_ into a massive palaver, and I think it's bad enough when it's just my fairly boring business they get stuck into, I do not wish that for you and I totally understand why you feel a need to put your foot down on it now and why it's something you're counting against me even if it's not really about _me_ as such. If this was the other way 'round, I'd be bloody leery of getting involved as well, I really would.”

 

 

   “So what do we do about it?” she asks, frown a smidge wet now, lips pinched, insisting,

 

 

   “I'm not asking you to disown your family - ”

 

 

   “Oh, if only that were possible,” he laments, half a joke, but she wells up and snaps,

 

 

   “I'm serious!”

 

 

   “So am I, love,” he soothes contritely, kissing each of the fingers of the trembling little hand he's still tenderly holding and then cradling it against his chest, somewhat heartened when she doesn't pull away,

 

 

   “I love them all to bits, but they do my head in, and best I can promise you is I won't tolerate any more of the interfering. Sansa's likely to ask the odd question now and again if you do want to keep seeing me, and once she gets comfortable she'll get nosier apace, so we'll have to tell her off if she starts prying because bless her she doesn't even realise she's doing it anymore, it's just how she is, but all the rest of them, I can have her help me make it clear that I bloody _will_ disown them if they start in or I hear they've been gossiping about either of us. It won't _just_ be for us, either, I'm sick of it and I'm not putting up with it anymore - like you said, you can be respectful of privacy even in a big family. I shouldn't have to run away across the world to get some distance and some privacy.”

 

 

   There is a pause in conversation, like a one-minute sponsored silence to commemorate the death of his ability to self-censor.

 

 

   “I think... one thing Sansa might have got right about all this seeming a bit quick off the mark... is that getting really, seriously invested in anything romantic is probably not a good idea right now,” Shireen says carefully, glancing up at him like she's watching him for signs he's about to throw a wobbly.

 

 

   “I s'pose she's told you about her and that other ex of your cousin's,” Rickon floats, fairly sure _that_ whole mess is what's stuck in Shireen's head now _just like Sansa wanted it_ , and duly she nods, so he goes on,

 

 

   “Well then I hope you can tell this is a different sort of thing. I'm not going through anything that'll make me decide to bugger off on you once I've had my fun, for one - I bloody hope Sansa's at least told you that much, that I'm not like that selfish bint she got involved with.”

 

 

   “She didn't draw any unflattering parallels,” Shireen reassures him, and then shakes her head and says,

 

 

   “Anyway, she didn't need to tell me this isn't anything like what she went through or the choices she made - I can see for myself that you're not like my cousin's other ex, I don't need anyone else to confirm that. It's not really about that, for me. It's about... ”

 

 

   She shrugs and takes her hand back, crossing her arms and trying,

 

 

   “It's about feeling _safe_ , and... _wanted_ , I suppose. I haven't since... well. I _never_ felt _wanted_ , but **_since_** , I've had a hard time feeling safe, too, even here, and you made me feel both. I don't want to rely on that too much. I want to prove to myself that I can feel safe on my own so I won't go to pieces.”

 

 

   “Shireen...” he starts, then cuts himself off, shakes his head, and gives it another go, hoping she can see how sincere he is even though he's got no appropriately clever answer to what she's just told him and hoping beyond that for her not to re-evaluate him to be a total wally because he can't pull anything suitably poetic or intelligent and sensitive out of his arse for this,

 

 

   “Y' know I said I just want to make you happy,” she nods slowly, apprehensive like she's expecting him to drop the both of them right in the shite and call it all off or something equally daft and disgusting just because she's let on that he won't be getting his end away regularly despite what her being quick off the mark might have suggested before, so he presses on,

 

 

   “I really meant that, alright? There's no point us carrying on if you're not happy with what's occurring, because I meant that I really want you, and all, but none of that's more important than you being safe and happy.”

 

 

   She looks ever so slightly sceptical, still, like she's got doubts or questions, but he's not done yet and with any luck she won't have by the time he is.

 

 

   “I'm not expecting you to just get over all this to suit me better - I never did,” he says seriously,

 

 

   “I do absolutely want to give us a go, but if that's not something you're up to or up for, I understand and I won't give you any grief about it, I promise, and this isn't me just trying it on for a bit of fun or anything, so if you're not having it, you can just say and I'll get out of your hair, but...”

 

 

   Her eyes are brimming now and she's sucked her lower lip in like she's holding her breath and he's half convinced that _she's_ convinced he's going to do something horrible and he doesn't feel right reaching for her to try and reassure her, even if that is what he'd prefer to do, so he just sighs, frustrated as fuck and rubbing a harsh hand over his eyes to blur out the sad sight of her and wake himself up a bit so he can get this just right, like she deserves -

 

 

   “ _Fuck_ me, Shireen - ” he expels, screwing up his face unhappily and just admitting it,

 

 

   “I am not good enough for you. _I'm not_. If we'd met before all this bollocks happened to you, you'd have seen it, too, at same bloody minute, I haven't a doubt, and you'd have been spot on, no argument. The _only_ reason we happened is because of what you went through.”

 

 

   “And your point is?” she snaps confrontationally, her arms tight around her legs now in an unmistakable barrier, expression ready for offence to be taken, pushing,

 

 

   “You know if you really have got cold feet because I've a long way to go yet before I'll be anything like a safe bet, or you just don't fancy this whole mess anymore now the novelty's worn off and it turns out every day being like the other day just isn't realistic, just tell me so we can sort it and move past it - you don't have to be a coward about it to try and _spare my feelings_ or whatever this is, I already _said_ I'd understand!”

 

 

   “Okay, _first_ off,” he tells her hotly,

 

 

   “You _really_ need to stop calling me a coward when I'm trying to do the right thing by you and not take advantage of you somehow by being a selfish twat,” she narrows her eyes and he hurries on,

 

 

   “ _Secondly_ , what I'm _trying_ to get at is I've got like, the _opposite_ of cold feet - that whole soppy protective thing you were on about, that wasn't just a morning-after thing, or some daft reaction to us shagging or whatever - I _genuinely_ do not give a toss about anything except you being alright at this point.”

 

 

   “But you - ” she begins, heavy with accusation, and he interrupts with brutal honesty.

 

 

   He _does_ talk fast though, just on the off chance she's thinking about tossing him out on his ear.

 

 

   “I want you to be happy, and I want to change my address to somewhere in the vicinity of your  knicker drawer, and I want to give _us_ a go even if it means a long way back to anything _like_ what we had the day before yesterday because that was _clearly_ a special-occasion-type-thing and I'm not cracked enough to expect that every day just like I don't expect us to live happily ever after from one day to the next, and I might be making a proper dog's dinner of this whole thing, but I _do_ understand you need to do things in your own time and in your own way, and I'm happy enough to support you for that, I _really_ am - ”

 

 

_This is where you don't live down to Meera's expectations - this is where you fucking do **better** for **once**!_

“Just because it gets me in a proper state knowing you feel safe with me, and wanted - which you _are_ , Shireen, _all_ of that, you can be whenever you want to be - _that_ doesn't mean you have to do or give me anything if you're not ready or you don't want to; there is _no_ obligation, _that_ is what I'm saying.”

 

 

   “You're saying...” she says leadingly, frown fixed and eyes shrewd on his, and Rickon just tells her.

 

 

   “Sod my family and sod your problems - all that's _only_ an issue for me to the extent _you_ make or feel or want it to be. You're pure quality, my dog's in love with you, and I'm up for this if you are. You just have to define what _this_ is, so I know what's going on and what I'm working with. That's all. It's up to you, Shireen.”

 

 

   Her arms loosen a little, and she shifts her legs back down to kneel sideways again instead of clinging to her knees like she hadn't decided yet whether to jump up and do a runner or kick him in the face.

 

 

   That's something, he reasons. That's a good sign.

 

 

   “I can't be forever going 'round yours, Rickon,” she says after a minute, like she's sorry, like it's an obvious thing she'd rather not shine a light on, and he makes sure to keep his shrug generally loose and his smile on and his voice a bit of a tease when he tells her,

 

 

   “'Course not, I understand - I mean I'd prefer for you to come 'round mine, but if it's not on, then it's just not.”

 

 

   “Rickon,” she sighs, tired and rubbing her palm up over her forehead to smooth it out, tangling her fingers into her hair, but there's a bit of a smile there even if she's not laughing, so he counts it.

 

 

   “I can't be forever going 'round yours - even when Sansa's not there, because this isn't about avoiding your sister, that's not what I'm worried about,” she emphasises, and he nods easily.

 

 

   “Right, no, course not,” he agrees, and she watches him closely for a moment and then goes on.

 

 

   “There's the practical side of things to think on, for one - I'm still held together with _tape_ most days, there's a surprising amount of ongoing maintenance required to make anything like a full recovery even though things _look_ like they're knitted up fairly well and it all holds up to a bit of light activity when there's a need,” she lists, a hint of a smile in there for the references to their field-testing of said state of recovery and what it'll take, and it reminds him of those flashes of easy cheek from **_before_** when everything was more relaxed and generally easier and it was just the two of them, having a laugh and getting on with it as it came, but her shrug is self-conscious when she reveals,

 

 

   “That's what I was doing in the bathroom, before we... I had to take all the plasters and what-have-you off to show you...”

 

 

   He doesn't know why that upsets or stuns him so much - it shouldn't really, it makes sense she'd have a need to protect her scars when they're still so raw, still only a few shaky steps from the open wounds that nearly killed her only a few months ago - but it does, because it just hadn't _occurred_ to him before now that she might have been doing something as unpleasant as that in those moments where she was alone between him letting the dog out and her leaving his bathroom and upending his world.

 

 

   It _should_ have been obvious to him, he realises guiltily, him _of all people_. He should have realised.

 

 

   It's not like he wasn't _aware_ that she nearly died, for fuck's sake, it's not like he wasn't _there_ the night she almost bled to death before she even saw the inside of the sodding hospital - it's not like he didn't notice how fresh and angry her scars looked the other day, how painful - she even _told_ him as much, when it at least occurred to him to ask her how careful he needed to be of her, of them, how tightly he was allowed to hold her...

 

 

   That's not even the worst of it though.

 

 

_Talk about bloody **exposing** yourself - no wonder she looked **vulnerable** lifting her skirt for us - she bloody **was** \- you should have seen that -_

 

 

   It is amazing that he can consistently prove himself to be clearly one teat short of an udder when he is also obviously a prize _tit._

 

   “I...” he tries to say, but it doesn't come out right, sounds more like he's just opened his mouth for no reason or changed his mind about clearing his throat, and he swallows and does clear it, and then forces himself to ask,

 

 

   “How bad is it, really?”

 

 

   _Like you fucking well should have done on the day, you selfish greb twannock -_

 

 

   She fiddles with the hem of her t-shirt and won't meet his gaze.

 

 

   He sort of wants to cry.

 

 

   “Shireen...” he says quietly, not sure how to prompt an answer that'll be in any way useful to either of them without coming across as pushy or impatient, and equally unsure how long he can stave off the waterworks if she keeps looking so _bloody_ hopeless _while **refusing to bloody look at him at all** , fucking **hell** \- _

 

 

   “It's - ” she cuts herself off and almost flinches away from whatever she was about to say, and anything _he_ might have been brewing is strangled in his throat blocking everything else and he hasn't got enough faith in his ability not to shag this sideways if he tries to clear it again, so he just waits.

 

 

   _Bugger him_ , but it's hard.

 

 

   It's hard to just have to _sit_ here and watch her struggle with how much to tell him and how to break it gently, because if that isn't the battle she's fighting internally right now he'll eat both his boots, and it's fucking _horrible_ having to sit here on the sidelines and just _let_ that happen, unable to jump in and help however much he desperately wants to, no amount of heartfelt alliance to her cause enough to give him the right to wade into this without being asked first.

 

 

   And she's not asking.

 

 

_This is the girl who looked us in the eye the other day and took off her dress so we could see her raw and barely-healed and **alive** and fucking **glorious** after surviving **attempted murder** \- just to prove a **point** \- and now she won't even show us that she's still bandaged up mostly, or tell us how long she'll need to be and whatever else is going on with all that, like it'll make a **difference** to the way we see her? Like it could **ever**?_

   It _couldn't_ , that's the thing. It couldn't change _anything_ about the way he sees her, but either she doesn't know that or something else is making her afraid to reveal the full extent of what she's dealing with injury-wise, and Rickon hasn't the first idea how to convince her that nothing she says in that direction can alter how brave and fantastic he thinks she is or that whatever's scaring her about sharing the truth as it stands isn't going to scare him off, so he just waits.

 

 

   And waits.

 

 

   Inspiration strikes him in the form of the song in the background changing, audible even though it's coming from another room and she seems to have turned the volume down considerably and remotely while his attention was elsewhere earlier.

 

 

   _Probably while you were ogling her like some kind of complete perv._

 

 

   “Not like you to have stage-fright, love,” he says softly, smile feeble, aware that he's really pushing his luck here and _really_ hoping that she won't respond poorly to his admittedly slightly sad attempt to lighten the mood and lift her spirits just a tiny bit so whatever pressure she's feeling will let up -

 

 

_Just enough for her to feel okay saying what she needs to say or doing what she needs to do, or giving us a good slap, or changing the subject, or **anything** , but if she starts crying -_

Shireen doesn't snort - because she is a lady, and also her nose is the cutest little thing and Rickon doubts she can when that's all she has to work with, though of course he believes wholeheartedly that Shireen can do anything she puts her mind to so most likely if she _wanted_ to, she could - but she does make a noise like a little huff of quickly-stifled, surprised mirth.

 

 

   “You don't half have some cheek, Stark,” she comments, looking him over shrewdly with amusement, and not a little _I see what you did there_ , and he seizes on it with all the grace he can manage.

 

 

   “Meera reckons you're probably overlooking a _lot_ of my less attractive qualities because I've got a half-decent arse on me, so I'm not too sad about that,” he fires back.

 

 

   It's honest, but it is _not_ graceful. Then again, he's never pretended to be that, and on the whole, given it makes Shireen throw back her head and laugh with genuine abandon, he can't find it in him to be sad on that count either.

 

 

   “She does, does she?” she demands wryly once she's no longer staving off hysterics and has swung her hair back over her shoulders _gods **save** him_ , pointing a finger at him in censure and accusing him,

 

 

   “It sounds to me like you've developed a taste for being flashed, Rickon Stark. Do I need to worry about that?”

 

 

   She wags her finger at him in mock-judgment and it's a good thing he's essentially just a shrivelled husk of a chap after last night's extravagances or he'd be a very sticky puddle on the floor, and no amount of grace could rescue _that_ situation.

 

 

   “Well, far be it from me to object if I just happen to have that effect on all the stunners,” he tries, also trying to un-stick his tongue from the roof of his mouth with limited success, voice coming out as thick as he's laying on the nonsense, admitting,

 

 

   “But seeing as it'd never happened to me before the other day, I reckon it's too early to judge one way or t'other...”

 

 

   “I'm not sure I believe that you're not used to all the girls throwing their clothes at you, lovely well-spoken lad like yourself,” she ribs him, a wicked glint in her eye, and _he_ snorts.

 

 

   “There's a surprising dearth of women hanging about the middle of the woods to do such a thing, love,” he enlightens her dryly, mostly because she's still suppressing giggles and his overactive drooling reflex that was so irritating earlier has deserted him - leaving him feeling about as dry as one, slightly stronger pun unintended - and he doesn't really have any other option than to rasp his way through,

 

 

   “Or in my garage, or on the motorway in the middle of the night, f' that matter. At least that you'd notice, although if I did happen to meet anyone _there_ , I'm sure the helmet would give me an edge and buy me an extra minute before they realised I look like _this_ and went running - ”

 

 

   Shireen hides her chortling behind her hand but her eyes are sparkling now and it feels like an absolute _achievement_ , so he rounds off with,

 

 

   “ - but I s'pose Sansa tosses the odd bit of laundry my way when I'm going downstairs to put a load on, if that counts. Anyway, I thought I'd been fairly open about just what sort of thing I do have a taste for, but we can always revisit that if y' like.”

 

 

   She covers her whole face with both hands and fairly shrieks with laughter, and Rickon covers his own ridiculous grin with his sleeve, fingers white curled into it with the effort not to tell her what it _does_ to him, being able to distract her from all the shit, making her laugh like nothing's wrong...

 

 

   Gods, he just wants to make her happy.

 

 

   It fades after a minute or so, and she clutches her side a little, wincing slightly as she adjusts her position and stretches, sliding her right leg towards him so it's almost touching his thigh as she wipes her eyes with her free hand and then looks at him directly, her smile luminous and soft.

 

 

   “I'm so glad you came,” she murmurs, like a secret just between them, and for a second he thinks with brilliant clarity and stupidity _well no I didn't even if it was a damn near thing_ before he realises what an absolute fucking eejit he is and musters up a smile to match hers, crossing his arms so he's not tempted to reach out or blocking his own reactions with his hand anymore so she can't see how sodding ecstatic he is to be in her presence, since after all he wants her to see that he wants to be here.

 

 

   He _does_ shift a bit though. No need to make it _quite_ that obvious how ecstatic he is.

 

 

   “So am I, love. Thrilled to be here,” he promises her, and she just _glows_.

 

 

   It lasts long enough, the quiet balanced contentment they've created by rising above the bollocks to enjoy life for a bit, that he deludes himself for a wild moment into thinking there's a slight possibility she might be maybe considering planting one on him, and it might be the way that thought makes him seize up and bite the inside of his cheek so he won't start spouting crap and spoil things that snaps her out of it, but equally she might just want to crack on with the order of the day, because she pulls back a little and folds her hands in her lap and some of the insecurity creeps back onto her face.

 

 

   “I think... I need to be working towards a place and time where I can feel safe on my _own_ again,” she says hesitantly, running the nail of one thumb under the nail of the other repeatedly as if she's not aware she's doing it, looking nervous and hesitant and like she's worried she's about to put her foot in it somehow, looking up at him every now and then like she isn't really looking at _him_ so much as doesn't know _what_ to be looking at,

 

 

   “I don't want to start... _relying_ on anything, or anyone... in case...”

 

 

   It's painful, but he nods sombrely and finishes where she's trailed off,

 

 

   “In case they don't hang about. That makes sense.”

 

 

   “No,” she denies immediately, crossly, shaking her head and sending her hair flicking across the sofa cushions,

 

 

   “Not because of - not _just_ because of that,” she insists after her own correction, putting her arms around herself again like she needs to hold herself together somehow,

 

 

   “I mean, _yes_ , that is a worry, of course it is,” she allows, and then grimaces and sets her jaw again stubbornly and goes on harshly,

 

 

   “But for _me_ , Rickon, for my own - for my own bloody _safety_ , let alone peace of mind! I can't just hide behind other people indefinitely because it _feels_ safer until I get to a point where I'm _completely_ useless without them! Support is _one_ thing, but I can't be - I can't be totally _reliant_ on having other people around me all the time to feel secure. For one thing it'd drive me 'round the bend eventually, and for another, it's not healthy. I need to reach a stage again where I can enjoy my independence and not feel so bloody _frightened_ just being on my own for a bit, because that's not who I am, it never was - I don't _need_ to be surrounded by people all the time to feel safe and happy!”

 

 

   “Well, I don't know what you need,” Rickon replies softly, treading very carefully over the minefield of her obvious anger and frustration welling back up, never more bloody grateful for the way handling Sansa all these months have given him the gift of not being blindsided by sudden shifts in the moods of others and the ability to adjust his attitude to match them when they happen so he can keep being useful,

 

 

   “Maybe you won't always need people to be there all the time so you're not so scared - even though you have every right to be - but maybe you do right _now_ , and that's just like you say, just support while you're working through this, getting to that point you need to be at, I mean...”

 

 

   She's glaring at him like she's getting ready to jump down his throat at the first sign of condescension or anything close, but he's done this dance before, and he's not going to make that beginner's mistake today.

 

 

   “Support's a different thing for everyone,” he says with a shrug,

 

 

   “As is how long it needs to go on for before it needs to change its trousers and start doing things differently. To Sansa, support's having the whole family on speed dial and pretending to live on her own when in reality her flat's just a really big remote walk-in wardrobe with en-suite and kitchen facilities where she goes on occasion when she's in a strop or needs to fetch summat she's not worn in a while, and the fact is her address might as well be my house anyway, but she's come _some_ way from the days when she wouldn't even go and visit Bran's to stay the night and she'd never been 'round Robb's new flat and just _talking_ about it sent her into floods - ”

 

 

   Shireen's glare softens slightly at the wardrobe comment, which is exactly what he was going for, but at the mention of Sansa's tears she cuts in quietly,

 

 

   “I suppose there's just something about you that appeals to vulnerable girls, then,” and he can't quite decide whether it's a tenuous joke or not, but after a fraught moment's hesitation, he goes along as though it was, shrugging more nonchalantly and remarking,

 

 

   “I reckon it's the giant dog always about, myself, but you'd know better 'n me,” and that does shake a little giggle out of her, quickly stifled, as she bites her lip and looks up at him with big, sad eyes.

 

 

   “He certainly doesn't hurt,” she admits quietly,

 

 

   “But neither do you.”

 

 

   Rickon would gladly set fire to any- and everyone who's ever hurt her, but he doesn't go there. It's not what she needs to hear, however true it may be.

 

 

   “Whatever does the business, love,” Rickon tells her honestly instead, keeping his eyes on hers and his voice even,

 

 

   “I don't mind mine being a safe house for anyone who needs it, and I know for a fact Shaggy doesn't mind being a combination heated blanket and guard dog whenever you're in the market, but my point is, _whatever you need_ , whenever, that's not something _anyone_ else can feel or decide. Sansa might need indefinite support with a live-in option, you might need something else - maybe you already know how long you'll be needing that sort of help for, what it needs to look like. That's all for you to work out, and in the meanwhile, we're about, alright? If you need us.”

 

 

   The way she looks at him, her hands curled together in her lap, her shoulders drawn up even though her back's straight now, her leg braced in front of her so clearly he can see the muscles tighten and her toes clench just there where she's nearly touching him, her face all pinched in wanting to trust and believe, eyes glistening and dark, is too much.

 

 

   “Shireen...” he manages, garbled and feeling like he just barrelled past a ROAD CLOSED sign mind empty of how to brake or safely dismount before he can careen off the out-of-order bridge up ahead, and her lips twitch.

 

 

   He almost gets to think he's somehow buggered it all up and is halfway to blank-faced panic by the time she leans forward over her leg, places her weight on her hands, and kisses him briefly.

 

 

   “You might not have quite the effect on the _general_ populace that'd see you getting flashed just walking through Sainsbury's for a pint of milk and have you developing an unfortunate liking for that sort of attention,” she says quietly, her voice so warm he tingles all over with the need to lose a layer or three and get down to his skin, looking at him so closely her eyes are blurred together like the sea and making his glaze over with the effort to pick out more detail and keep up while trying not to breathe so the only part of him that's been able to keep up with her yet today won't get any more bloody _ideas_ , but it's all a lost cause when she quirks a smile and finishes,

 

 

   “But you certainly make _me_ want to get my kit off for you, despite everything, and that does worry me...”

 

 

   “No need for that, love,” he mumbles, focus gone all squiffy and chest aching with overly-shallow breaths, her hair tickling his wrist,

 

 

   “I'd do laps 'round this place starkers f' you if y'd like, an' I'm not worried in t' least...”

 

 

   “I'd settle for you taking off your jacket,” she says reasonably, and sighs into his mouth when heavy embellished leather hits expensive-looking tiling with a clunking of hardware and the skittering of tempered glass past a poorly-closed zipper quickly muffled by a few layers of cosy cotton joining it - because like _buggery_ will Shireen _settle_ for anything on Rickon's watch - and he doesn't even care about his potentially questionable t-shirt choices standing up to the scrutiny of daylight, because Shireen's hands are so cool on his face and his neck and down his chest it's all he can think about and he's about ready to crawl right out of his overheated _skin_ just to get closer to her, wishing there were a way to express that in some way other than ineloquent gasped words and the fact they're already sticking together despite his attempts at _some_ kind of control -

 

 

   His phone rings briefly, and loudly, and Shireen takes her lips from his to peer off to the side, curiosity cutting through the desire on her delightful face, and Rickon wishes a nasty, nasty end on who-the-fuck-ever has arse-dialled him at this fucking hour - sad, thwarted non-pun just distressing in all its unfulfilled potential.

 

 

   Shireen blinks, and sits up, and asks without a shred of evidence that she was just kissing him like he's newly returned from the wars, her face all smoothed over like a beautifully-iced confection he'll get his fingers smacked for trying to sample before the party starts;

 

 

   “Who's Asha?”

 

 

   -

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all those of you who are reading this, and who have just read almost 10.000 words of free fanfiction, I'd like to direct you to the below before you just bugger off:
> 
>    [UPDATE](http://valkyrien.tumblr.com/post/164471453074/post-the-first-sentence-in-your-wip)
> 
> I'd also like to reassure everyone that yes, I am participating in Shipweek still, and am very excited for it it, and the details for Shipweek can be found by following that link to Frozensnare's Tumblr, but my level of participation will necessarily be contingent upon my health holding up, and right now, I am very, very sick, and the prognosis is not good. Essentially, I'm not expected to improve. 
> 
> The best I can hope for is to get some of this stabilised by being good to myself, and part of that process has to be limiting myself to only updating when the most recently-updated of my fics has reached three comments. I only updated this because it was the most-recently updated fic and it had finally achieved three comments on the last chapter, and until this one gets three, no more updates will be forthcoming. I've found that if I don't stick to that system, I only end up demoralised, burnt out, and exhausted, and that's not what I need.
> 
> For anyone who has just read 10.000 words of an update to a series begun last Shipweek, sat at home thinking 'What is this blackmailing bugger playing at, how very dare they demand a tangible positive response beyond a casual click of the Kudos Button before giving me more free entertainment?!', examine your soul and ask yourself whether that's a reasonable thought to have. Considering you've obviously been reading everything up to this point and must have at least liked it well enough to get this far. Over a period of almost a year now. Free of charge.
> 
> I'm not saying that attitude is the attitude of an ungrateful load of bastards happy to just watch content creators in fandom eventually burn out and give up after years of reaching out with enthusiasm and creativity for the mutual enjoyment of all who might be interested only to be met with silence as their works are made available for free and consumed greedily but never garner any direct, actual positive response other than a handful of Kudos' clicked despite the creators chomping at the bit to engage with others and share even more enthusiasm -
> 
> \- but it is the attitude of SOME kind of bastard. And it's letting the side down.
> 
> Everyone who puts an actual comment on a work is helping the creator of that content find motivation and inspiration to keep spending the time and making the effort to work on the fanfics and the fanart and giving the creators the desire and confidence to share those creations with the fandom at large. It's not much to ask in return for an outpouring of creative energy and enthusiasm and time. Every comment I get that's an actual comment on what I've written and not just a demand for more updates (those are just rude, making demands is just bloody rude) makes me want to write more and get better and share the fruits of those labours. No one puts this much work into something, shares it for free, and then keeps wanting to do that if they get next to no response from the people clearly consuming and enjoying their work.
> 
> Fandom creators are not a charity service breathing continual life into the fandom just for the sake of it - part of the social contract of engaging with the fandom is that if you're consuming someone's content, spending hours enjoying it, you have to at least reciprocate by letting them know if you liked it and maybe even what parts really spoke to you. That's just basic good manners, and it is not a lot to ask.
> 
> Who knows. Maybe you'll even make a new friend of the creator and end up getting things made especially for you, or just find a new person to talk about fun fandom things with. That's how fandoms grow, and end up with lots of content and lots of cool, engaged people, all being positively enthusiastic about the same thing together in a lovely give and take that benefits everyone.
> 
> That other bollocks leads to nothing except the death of fandoms through the medium of deleted works and accounts and bookmark lists filled with 'Sorry that work's no longer available' messages, and authors and content creators moving on to other projects where people are talking back and sharing their enthusiasm in a tangible way.
> 
> No one wants that for their fandom, so let's help each other out! Shipweek is a big part of fostering that creative give and take spirit. If you can't create, cheerlead! I promise, it means just as much and it's just as vital to keeping a fandom alive and healthy.
> 
> I look forward to hearing from you all, seeing you all at the Shipweek revels, and hope you all have a bloody brilliant week <3


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